The graphic arts : a treatise on the varieties of drawing, painting, and engraving in comparison with each other and with nature

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THE GRAPHIC ARTS

A TREATISE ON THE VARIETIES OF DRAWING,

PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING.

' There is a great advantage in thorough technical training which must not
be overlooked. When a man learns anything thoroughly it inches him to
respect what he learns. It teaches him to delight in his task for its own sake,
and not for the sake of pay or reward. The happiness of our lives depends
less on the actual value of the work which we do than on the spirit in which
we do it If a man tries to do the simplest and humblest work as well as he
possibly can, he will be interested in it ; he will be proud of it. But if, on the
other hand, he only thinks of what he can get by his work, then the highest
work will soon become wearisome.'

Prince Leopold's Speech at Nottingham^ June 30///, 1881.

THE GRAPHIC ARTS

9 Creati£!e

ON THE

VARIETIES OF DRAWING, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING

IN COMPARISON WITH EACH OTHER

AND WITH NATURE

BY

PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON

AUTHOR OF 'etching AND BTCHBRS/ 'a PAINTBR's CAMP,' 'THOUGHTS ABOUT

ART,* 'UFB OF J. M. W. TURNER,' *THB INTBLLBCTUAL LIFB,* 'CHAPTERS

ON ANIMALS,' 'ROUND MY HOUSB,' ' THE SYLVAN YEAR,'

'the UNKNOWN RIVER,' 'MODERN FRBNCHMBN,' BTC

BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS

189 1

LIBRARY ^

OF THE

LaAND STANFORD JUNIOR

UNIVERSITY.

y

/I .i /*6

Univbrsity Prbss:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

\0''^

TO

ROBERT BROWNING.

/ wish to dedicate this book to you as the representative of a
class that ought to be more numerous — the class of large-minded
persons who can take a lively interest in arts which are not
specially their own. No one who had not carefully observed the
narrowing of men^s minds by specialities could believe to what a
degree it goes. Instead of being open^ as yours hcts always been, to
the influences of literature^ in the largest sense^ as well as to the
influences of the graphic arts and music^ the specialised mind shuts
itself up in its own pursuit so exclusively that it does not even
know what is nearest to its own closed doors. We meet with
scholars who take no more account of the graphic arts than if they
did not exist, and with painters who never read; but, what is still
more surprising; is the complete indifference with which an art can
be regarded by men who know and practise another not widely
removed from it. One may be a painter, and yet know nothing
whatever about any kind of engraving; one may be a skilled
engraver, and yet work in life-long misunderstanding of the rapid
arts. If the specialists who devote themselves to a single study
had more of your interest in the work of others, they might find, as
you have done, that the quality which may be called open-minded-
ness is far from being an impediment to success, even in the highest
and most arduous of artistic and intellectual pursuits ,

PREFACE

TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

ON sending the sheets of this work to America, for an edition
to be published at a moderate price and without illustra-
tions, a question had to be considered which was not quite so
simple as, at first sight, it appeared. There were a great many
references to illustrations published in the first expensive English
edition, and it seemed, of course, to the author, as it would to
anybody else, that these references ought to be expunged when
the engravings or reproductions no longer accompanied them.
On further consideration, however, there appeared to be strong
reasons against this course. The book contains very numerous
references to works of art which cannot possibly be presented
in its pages, to such things as mural paintings and other works in
fiill colour which cannot be properly reproduced ; and as the
reader will not be able in every case to go at once to the per-
formances themselves, as he will be obliged by distance to take
a good deal on trust at all events, and to accept the author's
conclusions at least provisionally, there seems to be no reason
why the illustrations to the edition de luxe should not be referred
to in the cheaper editions just as freely as any other absent
works of art. It being decided, then, that the references should
be maintained, the only remaining doubt concerned the form of

viii Preface to the American Edition.

them. The strictly accurate and correct way would have been
to say each time, '' the reader may see an example of this in an
illustration by such an artist engraved or reproduced by such
another artist and published in the columbier octavo edition of
this work," but the most inexperienced of writers would feel the
awkwardness of sajdng that a hundred times over. The conclu-
sion was to keep all allusions to illustrations precisely as they
stood in the first edition. The reader may find this a conven-
ience if he has access to an illustrated copy.

The book is dedicated to a poet instead of being dedicated
to a painter or other workman in the graphic arts, but there is
an especial fitness in the dedication. I mean it as an expression
of a desire that the graphic arts should be better understood
by men of high literary culture than they have generally been
hitherto, and also that those concerned in them should look to
literature with more sympathy and imderstanding. It would not
have occurred to me to dedicate this book to Scott, Words-
worth, or Byron, if I had written in their day, because they lived
outside of the Graphic Arts just as an illiterate artist may live
outside of literature ; but Browning is not an outsider, and it is
pleasant to think of a man who by s)rmpathy and knowledge is
one of ourselves, one of the artistic firatemity, as it were, and
yet at the same time a poet of great power and a thinker whose
influence is steadily increasing. There is nothing to be more
lamented than the isolation of one form of culture fi*om another,
when it implies a real privation of light, and it was a character-
istic of the age that immediately preceded ours to isolate men
in separate cells of knowledge, each of which had its own little
window looking out upon the world in its own special direction.
It was not so in the great age of the Renaissance, and it is much
less so at the present date (1882) than it was thirty years ago ;
but we remember the time in England when artists were gener-

Preface to the American Edition. ix

ally illiterate and scholars equally ignorant of the fine arts and
the natural sciences. At the present day one of the best linguists
in our country is President of the Royal Academy, one of the
most imaginative poets is a famous painter, and some of our*
most eminent men of science are men of great literary power,
with a wide knowledge of books and a lively interest in art. I
do not dispute the economical doctrine that division of labour
is good for mechanical production, but I feel perfectly certain
that the concentration of all the faculties upon one art prevents
the mind from seeing the arts in their true relations to .each
other. Suppose the case of a painter, hard at work every day
at his own specialty in painting, I should say that unless he
takes care to keep his mind open by looking at the other varie-
ties of art and taking an interest in them, he is very much
exposed to the danger of narrowing his mind to the range of
qualities visible on his own canvases. He may judge of other
graphic arts unfairly, as a Spanish peasant goes to his own
church, and believes that Protestants are not Christians.

The object of the present volume is to show as truly as
possible the different kinds of usefulness which belong to the
different graphic arts, without unduly extolling or depreciating
any of them. For my part, I love them all, and each of them
has in my eyes its own dignity, derived from associatioh with the
labours of great men. The more we know of what they have
done in these arts, the more the arts themselves become honour-
able in our estimation. It will be found, too, that they throw
light upon each other, and that there are many close analogies,
not suspected at first, between processes apparently very differ-
ent. The truth is that the variety of processes is not so great as
it appears. Although the range of the graphic arts is extensive
in their dealings with nature, their technical range is limited.
All painting whatever is founded upon one of the two opposite

X Preface to the American Edition,

principles of transparence or opacity ; all engraving whatever is
founded upon line or mass. All the graphic arts together are
founded either upon naturalism or some kind of conventionalism,
and by the time we have studied them enough to recognise old
friends with new faces we are constandy meeting with principles
long ago familiar.

PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON.
January, 1883.

PREFACE

TO THE ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED EDITION.

THE lesson brought home to me by the studies which have
led to the production of this volume, is, that we ought
not to despise any form of art which has been practised by great
men. If it was good enough for them, it is probably good enough
for us. Able artists have often accepted quite contentedly what
may be truly called limited means of expression, but they have
never tolerated a bad art.

This reasonable degree of trust in the practical sense of great
artists has not always been general. A well-known instance of
the contrary is familiar to us in the history of etching. For a
long time before the modem revival of that art it was treated
with a degree of contempt which is hardly imaginable now.
People could not be induced to look at etchings, no publisher
would invest in them, no periodical would insert them, and the
general belief of the time was that Rembrandt had practised
an art which, at the best, was only a defective substitute for en-
graving. Surely a little reflection might have dissipated such
a prejudice as that ! Rembrandt was an illustrious painter, a
painter not only of great mental capacity, but of consummate
technical skill, which he exhibited in remailcable variety. Besides
this, he left behind him a great number of admirable drawings vtv

xii Preface to the English Illustrated Edition,

ink, in bistre, and other materials, quite sufficient to prove, if he
had never produced such a thing as a picture at all, that he was
a draughtsman of extraordinary powers, both mental and man-
ual. Now, pray consider the extreme inherent improbability
that such an artist as Rembrandt by these means had proved
himself to be would have spent nearly half his time on a bad
art ! He must have known, at least as well as we do, what are
the qualities and powers which make an art available as a means
of expression for such a genius as his, and, having made the
necessary practical experiments, he must have come to the con-
clusion that etching possessed them.

If we, in the present day, are liable to any wrong judgments
about other arts, like that of our immediate predecessors about
etching, we have a ready means of correcting them. We have
simply to inquire — the inquiry need not be long or difficult —
if the art that we feel inclined to despise has been practised by
great artists. If it has been practised by them, not as a mere
experiment, but as a pursuit, our contempt for it is either with-
out grounds or on wrong grounds, we are probably blaming it
for the absence of some quality which is not necessary to the
expression of artistic ideas. Let us take as an example the
simple and primitive-looking art of drawing with common pen
and ink upon common white paper. Most people do not think
much of such an art, for the materials are very cheap and to be
met with everywhere, and the work does not flatter the eye when
it is done. Still, it may deserve attention and consideration, for
it was practised by many of the greatest artists who ever lived,
amongst whom may be specially mentioned these three — Ra-
phael, Titian, Michael Angelo. When we come to look into the
matter, we find that the pen, though it does not offer any soft
^»ixury to the sense of. sight, is one of the best instruments for
the expression of firm, decided, substantial knowledge, and that

Preface to the English Illustrated Edition* xiii

IS why those great men used it The lead-pencil is sometimes
despised because it is given to beginners, yet it was employed
habitually by Turner in the full maturity of his talent ; and its
predecessor, the silver-point, was constantly in the hands of the
old masters.

Some of us remember the time when water-colour was so de-
spised in France that no critic would take it into consideration
as a serious art. It was connected, in the popular conception,
with the attempts of school-girls, and by an association of ideas
in accordance with common mental habits, it was assumed that
an art practised by young ladies could not possibly express the
ideas oC thoughtful and educated men. It would have been
equally reasonable to infer that because young ladies used pens
and paper for their school themes an experienced author could
not employ them for his manuscripts ; but reason is powerless
against the prejudices of association. The most practical argu-
ment in favour of water-colour is, that it actually has been em-
ployed by men of great learning (in artistic matters) and great
genius. If it had been a feeble art, such men as MUller and
Cox would not have resorted to it

Lithography is slightly esteemed because it has been vulgar-
ised by feeble work, or by work that is manually skilful, but des-
titute of mental originality. It is also very unfortunate in being
frequently represented by impressions from worn stones. It has
become a business, and a business not always conducted with a
due regard even to a commercial reputation. But surely this
unlucky turn in the application of the art has nothing to do with
its higher capabilities? It was heartily appreciated by great men
in the last generation. If such men as Decamps, Gericault, and
Delacroix, practised it or approved of it, we may be quite sure
that it is an artist's process, whether it may happen to be fashion-
able in the present day, or applied to unfashionable uses.

XIV Preface to the English Illustrated Edition.

I am told now that woodcut, though popular enough in a
practical way as an adjunct to journalism, and a handmaid of
scientific literature, is despised by the aesthetic taste of the day.
Like lithography, it has become a trade ; careful drawings ai^
often cut to pieces by apprentices, and badly printed afterwards.
We may deplore these errors. It is always sad to see good ma-
terials turned to unworthy uses, but these misappUcations ought
not to make us unjust to the art which is pursued unworthily-.
Is literature always followed with a due sense of its noblest re-
sponsibilities and powers ? Woodcut can be printed cheaply, so
that it is used and abused in commerce, yet it has fine artistic
capabilities. It is not a painter's process, because it is too
laborious for an occupied painter to undertake it ; but it is a
thoroughly sound process, capable of the most various effects ;
and it has been encouraged by great artists, especially by Hol-
bein, too delicate a draughtsman to patronise a rude and imper-
fect art.

The fundamental error in estimating the Graphic Arts is to
rank them by comparison with the ineffable completeness of
nature. They may be compared with nature ; they shall be so
compared in this volume, but only as a matter of scientific
curiosity, not at all for the purpose of condemning some arts
and exalting others. We who are constantly accustomed to the
language — or rather, in the plural, the very different languages
— of the graphic arts, lose by familiarity with their meaning the
sense of their real remoteness from nature. We forget — we
become incapable of properly understanding — what a distance
there is between the natural object and the artistic representa-
tion. For example, it was the custom of the old masters in
many of their drawings to shade in strong, open, diagonal lines.
There is nothing in nature like that. It is simply a conventional
language intended to convey the notion of shade without imita-

Preface to the English Illustrated Edition. xv

tioiiy without even the beginning of an imitation, of its qualities.
This is a single instance, but I could fill a hundred pages with
such instances. If imitative truth were the test of excellence
in the fine arts, the greater part of the drawings, etchings, and
engravings in our museums, and many of the pictures in our gal-
leries, would have to be condemned without remission. The real
test of excellence in a process is this. Will it conveniendy —
that is, without too much troublesome technical embarrassment
— express human knowledge and human feeling? Will it record
in an intelligible manner the results of human observation? If it
will do this for man, with reference to some limited department
of nature only, such as form, or light and dark, or colour .with-
out full natural light, then it is a good art, however far it may
fall short of nature in a vain struggle for complete imitation.
This is the reason why we valfe so many drawings by great
artists in which they voluntarily bridled the imitative instinct.
They restrained that instinct ; they pulled it up at some point
fixed in each case by some special artistic purpose and by the
nature of the materials that they employed. They did not share
the scorn for limited means of expression, which is one of the
signs of imperfect culture, but they looked upon each tool as a
special instniment and employed it in accordance with its proper
uses, content if it expressed their thought, often not less content
if the thought were conveyed by a hint or a suggestion to intel-
ligences not very far inferior to their own.

In our own time an entirely new set of processes have rendered
service by reproducing drawings and engravings of various kinds,
often with a remarkable degree of fidelity. Some of ^ese pro-
cesses have been employed in the illustration of the present
volume, and great care has been taken, by the rejection of fail-
ures, to have the best results which the present condition of
photographic engraving could afford. The reader may be glad

xvi Preface to. the English Illustrated Edition.

to know how these reproductions have been made. Without
entering into details which would require many pages for their
explanation, I may say that the processes used for this volume
are of very different natures. That employed by Messi:s. Goupil,
called photogravure^ is a secret, and all I know about it is that
the marvellously intelligent inventor discovered some means of
making a photograph in which all the darks stood in proportion-
ate relief, and from which a cast in electrotype could be taken
which would afterwards serve as a plate to print from. All the
Goupil photogravures in this volume are so produced, and very
wonderful things they are, especially the Mercuij, which is the
most difficult feat of reproduction I have hitherto seen attempted,
on account of the extreme delicacy of many lines and the sharp-
ness of others. We also give plates printed in two or more
colours. They are printed in tach case from one copper and
with one turn of the press ; how, we are unable to explain, but
though the making of these illustrations is mysterious, the quality
of them will be admitted by everyone who knows the originals
in the Louvre. M. Dujardin's process of heliogravure is entirely
different. He covers a plate made of a peculiar kind of bronze
with a sensitive ground, and after photographing the subject on
that simply etches it and has it retouched with the burin if re-
quired.* M. Amand Durand employs ordinary copper plates,
and uses bichromatised gelatine as an etching ground, which
acquires various degrees of insolubility by exposure to light. He
bites his plates like ordinary etchings ; and when they are in-
tended to represent etchings he rebites them in the usual way
and works upon them with dry point, &c., just as an etcher does,
but when they represent engravings he finishes them with the

♦ He does not draw it, the drawing is done by photography ; he bites
it in the lines cleared by the chemical process. M. Dujardin is not an
artist like Amand Durand, but he is a remarkably skilful scientific
operator.

Preface to the English Illustrated Edition, xvii

burin. In the reproductions from Mr. Poynter*s drawings, in
this volume, the dark lines are done by photographic etching,
and the uniform ground, which imitates Mr. Poynter*s paper, is
in ordinary aquatint. The reader now perceives the essential
difference between the Goupil process, in which there is no
etching, and the processes employed by the heliograveurSy which
are entirely founded upon etching.

The mechanical autotype process is founded upon the absorp-
tion of moisture by partially soluble gelatine, and its rejection
by bichromatised gelatine rendered insoluble by exposure to
light. The printing is done in oil ink, which is rejected by the
moist gelatine and caught by the insoluble. In the reproduc-
tion of a pen drawing the ink Unes are printed from portions of
gelatine which have been rendered insoluble by the action
of light, and the blank spaces between the Unes represent the
moistened gelatine. This is an excellent process for many
purposes, certainly the best of all for the imitation of pen
drawings.

The most defective of all photographic processes are gen-
erally those intended to print like woodcuts in the text. Such
reproductions often abound in thickened or in broken Knes, or
in lines run together, and when this is the case they are worse
than worthless from a critical point of view. The few repro-
ductions printed with the text in the present volume have been
very carefully executed by Messrs. A. and W. Dawson, and are
as nearly as possible free from these defects. The process
includes both photography and electrotype, but I am not able
to give the reader very precise information as to the means by
which the hollows are produced. The line, of course, is in
relief, and always very nearly at the same level, as in woodcut.*

♦ Apropos of woodcut, I have just detected an erratum in the foot-
note to page 75. Writing from memory, I had the impression that the

b

xviii Preface to the English Illustrated Edition.

The processes of photographic engraving have rendered very
great services, especially to students of moderate means who
live at a distance from great national collections, but the right
use of reproductions must always be accompanied by a certain
reserve. You can never trust them absolutely, for you can
never be certain that a publisher will be a sufficiendy severe
critic to reject everything that is less than the best. They are
most precious as memoranda of works that we have seen and
known, and then the only limit to their usefulness is the danger
that the reproduction which we possess may gradually take the
place in our minds once occupied by the original which is
absent

sitter for the first sketch mentioned there was a valet, on account of his
costume, but he was really a gentleman who had put on an old-fashioned
dress. The reader will find him at page 52a

CONTENTS.

PAGB

I. Importance of Material Conditions in the

Graphic Arts i

II. The Distinction between Useful and Aes-
thetic Drawing 8

III. Drawing for Aesthetic Pleasure 23

IV. Educational Influences of the' Graphic

Arts 34

V. Right and Wrong in Drawing 49

VI. Of Outline 62

VII. Of the Classic and the Picturesque Lines . 69

VIII. Of Drawing by Areas 74

IX. Of Drawing by Spots 78

X. Pen and Ink 82

XI. Auxiliary Washes iii

XII. The Silver-Point 124

XIII. The Lead-Pencil 132

XIV. Sanguine, Chalk, and Black Stone .... 144
XV. Charcoal 157

XVI. Water Monochrome 177

XVII. Oil Monochrome . . . • \^\

XX The Graphic Arts.

PACK

XVIII. Pastel 200

XIX. Tempera 209

XX. Fresco and its Substitutes 217

XXI. Painting in Oil and Varnish 249

XXII. Painting in Water-Colours \ 339

XXIII. Painting on Tapestry 388

XXIV. Wood-Engraving 398

XXV. Etching and Dry Point 430

XXVI. Line-engraving 449

XXVII. Aquatint and Mezzotint 480

XXVIII. Lithography 489

THE GRAPHIC ARTS.

CHAPTER I.

IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL CONDITIONS IN THE GRAPHIC

ARTS.

TECHNICAL studies have been so generally undervalued
that the purpose of a book like this may be readily mis-
understood or misrepresented. It may be supposed to deal
with matter only, and to neglect the mental element in art, be-
, cause it is not disdainful of material things. This would be a
wrong estimate of its purposes.

In the Graphic Arts you cannot get rid of matter. Every
drawing is in a substance and on a substance. Every substance
used in drawing has its own special and peculiar relations both
to nature and to the human mind.

The distinction in the importance of material things between
the Graphic Arts and literature deserves consideration because
our literary habits of thought lead us wrong so easily when we
apply them to the arts of design. All of us who are supposed
to be educated people have been trained in the mental habits
which are derived from the study of books, and these habits, as
all artists and men of science are well aware, lead students to
value words and ideas more than things, and produce in their
minds a sort of contempt for matter, or at least for the knowl-
edge of matter, which indisposes them for material studies of all
kinds, and often makes them blind to the close connexion
which exists between matter and the artistic expression of
thought.

2 The Graphic Arts.

In literature, such a connexion can scarcely be said to exist.
A writer of books may use pen or pencil, and whatever quality
of paper he chooses. There is even no advantage in reading
the original manuscript, for the mechanical work of the printer
adds clearness to the text without injuring the most delicate
shades of literary expression. The quality of paper used by
Sir Walter Scott did not affect one of his sentences ; the quality
of the different papers which were carefully selected by Turner,
for studies of different classes, determined the kind of work
he did upon them. Ink and pencil in the hands of a writer
express exactly the same ideas ; in the hands of a draughtsman
they express different ideas or different mental conditions. A
draughtsman does not interpret the light and shade of Nature
in the same manner with different instruments. He has to
throw himself into a temper which may be in harmony with the
instrument he uses, to be blind for the time to the qualities it
cannot render, to be sensitive to those which it interprets readily.
Even the roughness or smoothness of the substance he is work-
ing upon determines many a mental choice.

Of these things a literary education gives us no perception.
It even misleads our judgment by inducing us to suppose that
substances are beneath the consideration of an artist, as they
are outside the preoccupations of an author. Or it may felsify
our opinions in another and more plausible way. It may, and
it often does, induce people to think that technical matters may
concern artists and still be below the region of the higher criti-
cism which should interest itself in the things of the mind, and
not bestow attention upon the products of the laboratory, or
the processes of the painting-room. As a result of this way of
thinking we sometimes hear critics praised for not being techni-
cal, and blunders in technical matters, which surprise those "who
understand the subject, do not appear to diminish the popularity
of writers upon art, if only their style be elegant and their de-
scriptions lively and amusing. Technical ignorance appears
even to be an advantage to a critic, as it preserves him from

Material Conditions, 3

one of the forms of tiresomeness, and leaves him to speak of
sentiments which all can enter into rather than of substances
which only workmen and students ever touch, and of processes
which only the initiated can follow.

It will be my purpose in the present volume to show how
mental expression is affected by material conditions in the
graphic arts. I shall point out, not in vague generalities, but
in accurate detail, the temptations offered by each substance
used and each process employed. I shall make it clear in
what manner, and to what degree, the artist has to conform
himself to material conditions in order that he may best express
the thoughts and sentiments which are in him, and, above
all, I shall make it my business to show how the choice
amongst those thoughts and sentiments themselves, how the
expression of some and the suppression of others, may in very
many instances be accounted for by the nature of the materials
employed. It is only by a thorough understanding of these
conditions of things that criticism can lay its foundations in^
truth and justice. You may write brilliantly about an artist
without knowing anything of the inexorable material conditions
under which his daily labour has to be done ; you may capti-
vate readers as disdainful of those conditions as yourself by the
cleverness with which you can substitute rhetoric for informa-
tion ; but if you have any real desire to understand the fine arts
as they are — if you have any keen intellectual curiosity about
them, if you wish to speak with fairness of those who have
worked in them — you will be brought to the study of matter as
well as to the comparison of ideals. The criticism which pro-
fesses indifference to technical knowledge is a criticism without
foundations, however prettily it may be expressed. It is to the
true criticism what a cloud is to a mountain — the one a change-
ful vapour sometimes gorgeous with transient colour and bearing
a deceptive appearance of permanent form, the other massive
and enduring, with a firm front to every wind and a base of
granite deep-rooted in the very substance of the world.

•#

4 The Graphic Arts,

There is a prevalent idea that the study of material conditions
is uninteresting — a dull study, not fit to occupy the attention of
highly cultivated persons. This idea comes from our curiously
unsubstantial education. The training of a gentleman has been
so lAuch confined to words and mathematical abstractions that
he has seldom learned to know the intimate charm which dwells
in substances perfectly adapted to human purposes. There is a
charm in things, in the mere varieties of matter, which affects
our feelings with an exquisite sense of pleasurable satisfaction
when we thoroughly understand the relation of these substances
to the conceptions and creations of the mind. This charm is
entirely independent of their costliness, and one of the best
results of knowledge is that it makes us appreciate things for
themselves as no one can who is unfamiliar with their noblest
uses. A painter takes some cheap earth which he finds in Italy,
such as the ferruginous earth of Sienna ; and it is better than
gold to him, for it will enter into a hundred lovely combinations
where gold would be of no use. Art does not reject what is
costly, yet seeks nothing for its costliness. It accepts the blue
of the lapis lazuli, and the colouring matter of the emerald,* but
it also keenly appreciates a stick of well-burnt charcoal or a bit
of common chalk. Many of the most delicate designs left to us
by the old masters were done with the .silver-point, one of the
simplest instruments and one of the cheapest, as it did not wear
perceptibly with use. Here we find artists taking advantage of
that blackening of silver by the very tarhish which gives so much
labour to servants. The diamond point is used by engravers on
metal, who appreciate its marvellous hardness. Ivory is used
by miniature-painters on account of its exquisite surface. So
^influential are substances upon the fine arts that the modem
development of wood-engraving has been dependent upon the
use of a particular kind of wood, and even on a peculiar way of

* In ultramarine and the emerald oxides of chromium, the first is lapis
lazuli in powder, and the second contains the colouring matter of the
emerald.

Material Conditions, 5

sawing it across the grain, whilst the existence of lithography is
dependent upon the supply of a peculiar kind of stone. The
metals used in engraving directly affect the style of the engrav-
ing itself. The existence of such a metal as copper has had a
direct influence upon art, for if there had been none of it in the
world a great deal of the best work in etching and engraving
would never have been executed. If an artist who had etched
on copper took to etching on zinc, the change of metals would
produce, after a few experiments, a marked alteration in his
manner. Even the degree of fineness or coarseness, in paper
or canvas, affects the style of an artist. No one paints in the
same way on coarse cloth and smooth panel ; no one draws in
the same way on rough paper and Bristol board.

The materials employed affect not only the expression of the
artist's thought and sentiment, but also the interpretation of
nature. Every material used in the fine arts has its own subde
and profound affinities with certain orders of natural truth, and
its own want of adaptability to others. One might think that
the materials were sentient and alive, that they had tastes and
passions, that they loved some things in nature as the horse
loves a grassy plain, and hated others as a landlubber hates the
sea. It will be a part of my business in this volume to show
liow these affinities and repugnances operate, and how they
iffect the interpretation of nature in art, by impelling artists to a
selection of natural truth in accordance with their dictates.

After this explanation of my project, I trust that its intel-
lectual purposes are clear. The book will deal with matter,
but with matter as an instrument of mind ; it will deal with
the materials used by artists, but with reference to their various
adaptabilities to the interpretation of nature. Seen with this
double reference to human thought and nature, the substances
we shall have to examine have a far higher significance than
they could ever possess by themselves. What, by itself, is an
inch of strong silver wire ? What is it but six-pennyworth of
silver? Set it in a holder, let Raphael take it up atvd dt^cw ^'^

6 ' The Graphic Arts.

it — draw the Virgin modest and feir, the Child gleeful and
strong — let Raphael trace the ideal forms in the dark grey silver
lines, and then how noble the metal on the paper becomes !

People reverence carbon in the form of the diamond because
it is prodigiously expensive, and they despise it in the form ot
charcoal because it is so cheap that it can be used for fuel ; but
a piece of charcoal and a diamond point are both equally noble
in the eyes of an artist, for with the first he can draw very deli-
cate shades, with the second the finest of lines. Even the hair
of the camel, the sable, and the badger, may become ennobled
in the hands of painters as a goosequill is when a poet uses it,
and that unclean animal the hog renders unceasing service to
the fine arts by supplying the kind of brush which has done
more than anything to encourage a manly style in oil. The
importance of instruments in the interpretation of nature and
the expression of mind may be realised by simply imagining
what oil-painting would have been if the hog-tool, which gives
mastery over thick pigments, had been replaced by the camel-
hair pencil, which can only be used with thin ones. It may
seem, to the ultra-refined, a degradation to great art to owe any-
thing to pigs* bristles, but all debts ought to be acknowledged.
The history of art can never be truly or completely written until
the influences of such things (apparently humble, yet in reality
most important) is fully recognised. The use of this or that
kind of hair in brushes has more to do with executive style in
art than the most ingenious reasonings about the beautiful.

It may be thought that, as technical matters are very gener-
ally known, there is little need for a new book about them ; but
to this it may be answered that' the existing knowledge is scat-
tered and fragmentary, so that the mere bringing of it together
may be a service not without utility. Besides, there is a mor-
phology of processes which has never been traced, and which
I desire to trace. I wish to show the close connexion which
exists, in principle, between processes so different in apparent
results that they are not called by the same names. It may be

Material Conditions. 7

an advantage, again, to judge different methods fairly on their
merits without reference to changeful tastes and fashions. There
is an absolute value in each of the graphic arts quite indepen-
dent of its relative value with regard to the temporary state of
public opinion. The two questions about each of these arts are,

* Can it interpret nature ? ' and, * Can it express human thought
and emotion ? * The answer to these questions in every case is,

* Yes ; within certain limits fixed by the nature of the material
and the process.' And then comes the farther question, * What
are those limits ? ' to which this volume shall be as complete an
answer as I can make it.

8 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER II.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN USEFUL AND AESTHETIC

DRAWING.

THE Graphic Arts are equally capable of expressing two
opposite states of the human mind — the positive and
the artistic.

Work done in the positive state of mind has for its single
purpose the recording of fact and truth. Work done in the
artistic temper may record a great deal of truth incidentally,
but that is not its main purpose. The real aim of all artistic
drawing is to convey a peculiar kind of pleasure, which we call
aesthetic pleasure.

What this aesthetic pleasure is, and how it is excited, I shall
have to explain later. For the present it is enough to note the
separableness of it from simple truth, and the broad division of
all work done in drawing into two great categories.

These categories might be called the positive and the poetic ;
but the word 'poetic,* from its habitual association with the
highest kind of imaginative creation, is too exalted for our pres-
ent need. There is a great deal of clever, and by no means
despicable artist-craft, which does not in the least deserve the
name of poetry, and yet which is at the same time clearly not
the outcome of the positive spirit. I therefore prefer the word
* artistic,' which will readily be understood to mean a kind
of mental activity which plans and schemes for aesthetic
pleasure.

It is most important that the distinction between these two
motives of draughtsmen, truth and delight, should be constantly

' fmnemhen

Useful and Aestketic Drawing.

iwnembered as a distmction which always exists ; but if we
desire to think justly (which is the one purpose of all critical
study and reflection) we must keep the distinction in our minds
without hostiUty to either kind of drawing. Both are worth pur-
suing ; both have rendered welcome service to the world ; and
it is only a proof of narrowness to think contemptuously of
either. Unfortunately it often happens, since narrowness is the
commonest of all the failings of men, that those who are strongly
imbued with the love for measurable and ascertainable fact have
a contempt for the purveyors of aesthetic pleasure ; whilst, on
the Other hand, those who are gifted with the genuine artistic
temperament, — the temperament which flies to aesthetic pleas-
ure as a bee to a bank of flowers, despise the slaves of truth for
their deadness to exquisite sensations.

Of the two kinds of drawing, that of fact and truth has
hitherto been the less appreciated. So keen is the general
enjoyment of imaginative or fanciful art that the simple truth
seems spiritless and unintelligent En comparison. It is only
since the great scientific development of the present century
that severe, emotionless drawing has been produced in a regular
and reliable manner by any class of draughtsmen. Even now,
with the instructive examples of pliotography so readily accessi'-
blc, the feelings and emotions of men are so strongly acted upon
by imaginative drawing that it seems to them truer than truth
itself; and they are not only incapable of detecting its want of
veracity, but they claim for it, in their enthusiasm, virtues pre-
cisely the opposite of those which it really possesses. The
misfortune of this is that truthful work, the simple transcript
of the facts of nature, does not receive the moderate degree
of credit which it deserves. Being without charm it is also
without friends. It warms no man's heart ; it awakens no
man's enthusiasm; and whereas the clever artist, who knows
how to play upon our feelings by the well-known devices which
appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities, gets credit for being truth-
ful, which he is not, as well as accomplished, which W « ■, ^!tvt

lO The Graphic Arts.

simple draughtsman^ who draws what is before him, does not
always win the trust which is due to his one virtue — veracity.
This has been rather painfully impressed upon people who
take an interest in these things by the failure of topographic
landscape. In the decade between 1850 and i860 a distinct
attempt was made, as an experiment, to draw the forms of
landscape as they really are, and to colour them for truth rather
than for beauty and charm. No intelligent artist or critic ever
desired that the simple transcript of nature produced in this
manner should supersede the cunningly arranged landscape
which gave aesthetic pleasure; but it was thought that plain
truth might find utterance in painting as it did in literature.
It turned out, however, that the most serious and conscientious
attempts in this direction were commonly misunderstood. The
painters who set themselves to copy nature accurately were
supposed to be ignorant of art. The absence of common arti-
fices of arrangement made these men liable to the sort of
criticism which blames one thing for not having the qualities
of another, as if it were possible to reconcile composition with
the truthful delineation of places.

If topographic landscape-painting had little chance in Eng-
land it had none whatever on the Continent The one example
of it in our National Gallery, Seddon's * Jerusalem,' would not
be tolerated in a Continental collection, it being always under-
stood that the purpose of a picture is not to tell the truth but
to gratify the aesthetic desires. The too clear atmosphere, the
importunate quantity of equally visible details, and the hopeless
ugliness of very much of the material, are so strongly against
that picture from the artistic point of view that its proper place
is not amongst works of aesthetic art, where it shows to too
great disadvantage ; yet paintings of that character, representing
scenes of interest with the most strict veracity, would be valuable
in their own humble way as illustrations of remote realities.
That such art should be denied the right of existence because
it is not aesthetic is as unreasonable as it would be to refuse

II paper aait

Useful and Aesthetic Drawing.

paper and print to plain narratives of travel because they are
not novels and poems. It is well to appreciate the aesthetic
qualities of Graphic Art when they are present ; but, when they
are not present, it is very desirable that we should be just to the
humble merits which often take their place. Accuracy in mat-
ters of fact b one of those humble merits, and a very useful
quality it is in all Graphic Art which illustrates either contem-
porary events, or past history, or places which have an interest
of their own. The woodcuts in our illustrated newspapers are
often feirly accurate, but not always. When they are so the
quality is far more valuable relatively to the special duty and
function of such newspapers than any degree of cleverness in
composition. For example, the Cape mail steamer, the Ameri-
can, foundered in mid-ocean in April 1880, from the rupture
of the screw-shaft. The weather was calm ; and the interesting
point of the whole story is that the captain and other people
were as calm as the weather, and that there was no confusion
in their proceedings. They first breakfasted quietly and then
quitted the ship in the boats, which started in good order with
a sufficient sailing breeze and all sails set. These interesting
facts were illustrated in the Graphic, in plain, truthful woodcuts
from sketches by the chief officer of the vessel. A French
illustrated newspaper treated the wreck in the grand, imagina-
tive style. In the French artist's vigorous sketch the American
was tossed in such a terrific sea as only occurs in the most
furious Atlantic gales. She was dismasted, and in such a con-
dition of wild and hopeless disorder that it would have been
impossible to launch even a life-boat. The artist had appealed
powerfully to the feelings, and his sketch proved very con-
siderable rough ability in its way ; but observe how, by missing
the facts of the real incident, he at the same time missed its
peculiar and exceptional interest, and confounded a remarkable
and unique occurrence with the crowd of ordinary shipwrecks
ttisg from mere bad weather. The example is a striking
nit it is not solitary. The clever artist, who is a very

i.

12 The Graphic Arts.

dangerous person indeed when a record of fact is wanted,
comes with his love of effect and composition and is careless
about truth of incident and form ; yet in all illustration what
' we need is a trustworthy record. When the Tay Bridge broke
down we wanted to know how it had been constructed, and we
did not care in the least what the skilful draughtsman on wood
chose to imagine concerning the clouds about the moon^ So
in books of travel, the real interest of illustration lies in the
faithful drawing of things that we should not clearly understand
from a verbal description, and this can be given without any
aesthetic artifice or charm. Drawing of that kind, though with-
out pretension, is as valuable as any honest account of inter-
esting facts in writing, and deserves the acknowledgment which
is due to all works of simple utility.

The plain drawing of facts has been undervalued not only in
comparison with artistic design, but also, in a different way, by
comparison with photography. It is supposed by many that
since photography gives very minute detail, and is, in some
sort, the fixed reflexion of nature in a mirror, anyone who
desires a true record can get it much better by making use of a
photographic apparatus than by the most careful study with a
pencil. This is one of those cases in which a really well-founded
opinion cannot possibly be a simple opinion, easily transmitted
to those who have not studied the subject. Photography does,
in some respects, give more delicate truth than any draughtsman
can, but fix)m its incapacity for selection there are many truths
which it cannot state so clearly as they can be stated in drawing,
and it often happens that even if the photograph could give
them separately, it cannot give them together. Again, not-
withstanding all the really wonderful ingenuity which has been
employed in making the photographic apparatus portable and
convenient, it is still far from being so ready and handy as a
pocket-book. But there is one fatal objection to photography
in comparison with drawing, an objection which far outweighs
all the others, and that is, the necessity for an actually existing

Useful and Aesthetic Drawing. 13

modeL You cannot photograph an intention, whilst you can
draw an intention, even in the minutest detail, as we constantly
see by the drawings made by architects of buildings not yet in
existence. This setties the question in favour of drawing, be-
cause all constructors require to be able to represent ideas and
conceptions which have not yet become realities. Even in the
representation of realities, photography is less explicit than a
good drawing by a person who thoroughly understands what he
has to represent. I may mention, as a remarkably good ex-
ample of explanatory clearness in drawing, the famous French
architect Viollet-le-Duc. The purpose of his immense labours
as a draughtsman was not to render the aspects of nature,
but to give the clearest possible explanation of substance and
structure. His work is, therefore, not to be compared with
the work of painters, in which there is generally an attempt to
render something of the mystery and effect of nature, and yet,
although he did not attempt this, he employed an intelligence
of extraordinary acuteness in drawings which every cultivated
critic admires for the special merits which they possess. For
people whose pursuits are not those of a painter, Viollet-le-Duc
(though his work is * hard as nails,' from the pictorial point of
view) would be a much better model than Delacroix.

It is much to be regretted that plain explanatory drawing
should not be more generally practised and understood. I
remember being told by a French artist, who lived in a pro-
vincial town of moderate importance, that there was not a single
workman then living in the town who could understand a design
in perspective. Mechanical drawings of plans, sections, and
elevations, are, perhaps, more clearly understood by workmen
in the common trades ; but with reference to these I may ex-
press another regret, which is, that they are not better under-
stood in the higher classes of society. It is so easy to explain
structure by these three devices, and they place within our reach
such admirably exact means of information with regard to very
much human work, from tiie construction of a calVvtdi^X, ot ^sv

14 The Graphic Arts.

armoured battle-ship, to that of a tdephoney or a watch, that
every educated person ought to be able to understand them
without difficulty; and yet at present you find ladies and
gentlemen who can make something out of an elevation, but
are puzzled by a plan, and almost irritated by the apparent
insufficiency of a section.

It is not intended to devote space to mechanical drawing in
the present work, because the writer has not the special knowl-
edge which would be required for any adequate treatment of
the subject, and also because, since the purposes of mechanical
and artistic drawing are so widely different, their presence in
the same volume might appear incongruous. One remark may,
however, be made on the subject in passing. Enthusiastic
vmters upon the fine arts have sometimes brought themselves
to believe, in the strength of their admiration for great artists,
that their draughtsmanship was scientifically accurate, and could
be compared with the perfection of the best mechanical work.
This is one of the common errors which enthusiasts are so
ready to commit Perfect accuracy is never to be expected
fit>m any artist, though the degrees of deviation fix)m it are
infinite ; and we speak of ' accurate drawing ' as I have spoken
of it in this very chapter, always with the well-understood reser-
vation that the accuracy is relative and not absolute. Mechani-
cal drawing, with rule and compass, is man's confession of the
inaccuracy of his own faculties. If we could draw exactly, what
should hinder us from making elevations of steam-engines with
a fi-ee hand, unembarrassed by these tiresome instruments ?

There are degrees of perfection even in this, the most rigidly
exact of all the graphic arts — degrees of perfection that no
one can properly appreciate who has not been trained at the
mechanical draughtsman's desk. When the thickness of a hair-
line on one side or other of the all but invisible point is enough
to lead to inconvenient constructive error, it is intelligible that
intense care should be required. Let us respect these exact
and patient labours with the bow-pen, for without them our

Useful and Aesthetic Drawing. 1 5

noilem industrial activity would not be possible. A locomotive
could not be made from sketches, nor even from careful draw-
ings done by the eye and the hand.

A kind of drawing which completely realises the double sense
of the Greek word ypa^iv is the designing of letters for type.
The draughtsmen who invent or modify the forms of letters for
new founts, display at the same lime die accuracy of mechani-
cal draughtsmen, or what very nearly approaches it, and some-
thing of the taste of artists. Without a very high degree of
accuracy the type would be visibly wrong in its curves, whilst,
if the designer had no taste, he would be unable to carry out a
dominant principle through all the letters of the alphabet. The
matter is more interesting from an artistic point of view than
people generally imagine. They fancy that type is made some-
how by machinery, and they little suspect by what art and judg-
ment the letters were so cut that they might look well not only
in isolation but together. Sometimes improvements, or changes,
have gone in a wrong direction. For example, in the last cen-
tury, and before it, nobody tried to make the letters occupy the
same horizontal space, or anything Uke it ; but in the earlier
half of our own centiuy type- designers thought the old type
too irregular, and by extending the narrow letters laterally and
narrowing the broad ones they obtained an appearance of more
perfect mechanical regularity at the cost of variety. At the
same time they became proud of their skill in cutting fine hair-
strokes, and printers were proud of the clearness with which
they coiUd print both very thin strokes and very thick ones ;
hence a kind of type which reached its perfection in M. Plon's
establishment at Paris, where the thick strokes were very broad
•uid black and the thin ones as delicate as they could be, the
japer used being as white and as smooth as possible to show
ic clear cutting of the type to the best advantage. No doubt
the effect of clearness was obtained, but the system had the
A artistic defect that the diick strokes were importunate and
ilive when the reader was near enough for the thin ones

^g^arti;

i6 The Graphic Arts.

to be visible. The type-designers of the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries avoided this error. In their designs one part
of a letter was not made for one distance and another for an-
other. They also avoided the modem vulgarism of cmvature
without graceful modulation. The curves in the best old type
are sometimes bold and sometimes restrained, just as the letters
are sometimes broad and sometimes narrow. In modem vulgar
type the curves are bold and mechanical everywhere alike, and
the letters as nearly as possible of uniform dimensions. It need
not surprise us, then, that in a time like the fourth quarter of
the nineteenth century when, whatever may have been our errors,
some of us do really seek after what is beautiful, and dp really
try to improve our taste, there should have been a return to
what is now called * old-faced type,' and a better appreciation of
its forms.

The excellence of type-designing, which does not imitate
an3rthing in nature, depends almost entirely upon the sense of
harmony in the designer. He must feel by a happy instinct
what sort of letter will go well with another, and when he de-
cides to modify the shape of one he must feel what modification
will be required in another to give the letters that indescribable
family likeness which runs through every good alphabet. The
curious in these matters will remember instances in which the
designer's modifications have not been consistently carried out,
and they will also remember other founts of type which appear
to have reached an ideal perfection of harmony. The love of
artistic consistency which exists even in ordinary human nature
is clearly proved by the care with which type-designers and
sign-painters always at least try to draw congruous alphabets.
The absence of any model for letters in the natural world
makes the effort the more remarkable as the designer has really
nothing to go by but his own sense of what is fitting. Besides
harmony, letters often exhibit marked artistic qualities of other
kinds. Some are picturesque and others severe, some are deli-
rcate and elegant> others sturdy and massive, qualities which are

Useful and Aesthetic Drawing, ly

an to be found in the highest kinds of painting, sculpture, and
architecture, and which add immensely to the interest and
variety of nature itself, both in animals and plants.

The alphabets used by different nations clearly reflect the
general tendencies of their taste. It is not merely custom
which makes us feel a sense of incongruity when we meet with
Roman fetters on monuments erected in a Gothic building;
there is a real incongruity between the forms of classic letters
and the forms of Gothic architecture and decoration. Gothic
letters are picturesque and ornamental, in the same taste as
the contemporary architecture and furniture; Roman letters
are simple and severe, like Roman architecture and dress. This
is a subject which would bear following out if we had space
for elaborate comparisons, but they would require illustrations.
Every student of Greek, who has any sense of the charm there
is in the mere shapes of letters, must have felt that a part of
his pleasure in reading the language was due to the beauty of
the Greek characters. When Greek is printed in modem Eng-
lish type it loses half its charm, and this is not merely fanciful,
it results from a real artistic difference.

Handwriting is to the drawing of type and the letters of in-
scriptions what sketching from nature is to the slow and stu-
dious drawing of natural forms. All writing, whether careful or
careless, is drawing of some kind, though the forms drawn are
not natural but conventional. Rapid handwriting is not merely
like sketching, it is sketching. The same strong marks of idio-
syncrasy which are to be found in the sketches of artists exist
in handwriting, and there is the most various beauty in hand-
writing, which is quite distinct from its legibility, just as the
beauty of manual style in painting is a different quality from
truth. It is curious, considering how few people give a thought
to these matters, that each kind of handwriting, whether the
letters are well formed or not, is generally not less consist-
ent and congruous than the carefully studied alphabets of the
type-de$igner9 and letter-engravers. People write legibly o\

f 8 The Graphic Arts.

illegibly, elegantly or inelegantly, but they seldom put ktteirs
together which do not go well with each otiher. There are in-
stances of incongruity, but they are rare. In general they arf
prevented fix)m occurring by the unities of tastes and habit
which form the identity of each of us, so that we acquire a
personal style in penmanship as we do in the use of language.
The writing-master, who disapproves of our personal st)des, and
tries to impose upon us his own norma to correct our personal
deviations from his ideal, does precisely what narrow criticism
does in the fine arts when it tries to set up a fixed model of
style.

Useful drawing of objects does not altogether ignore effects
of light, but it uses sucii effects for its own purposes, taking
more or less of them as they are required simply for explana-
tion. The outline of an t%% is merely a flat oval, but if shade
is used the full shape of the egg is explained. In mechanical
drawing shade is very frequentiy needed for explanations of this
kind, and it is used accordingly, in a formal manner, there being
no necessity for giving it any artistic quality, or any delicate re-
semblance to nature. Burnet, in his treatise on the Education
of the Eye, showed conclusively how valuable the shadows cast
by the sun may be for explaining the forms of objects which are
only partially seen. He gave a figure which would only have
represented a sudden rise in a road, had it not been for the cast
shadow, which revealed the existence of the three arches of a
bridge, the arches themselves being quite invisible to the spec-
tator. Artists have often amused themselves and the public by
making a cast shadow tell part of the story of a picture.

Local colour (the difference in degrees of dark between one
hue and another) may often be explanatory in useful drawing,
when the object is to exhibit the employment of different mate-
rials in construction. For instance, if an architect were drawing
a pavement composed of white, black, and red marble, he might
give the two first with their own strong contrast, and represent
the red by a grey shade of its own degree of depth. Colour is

If

I often

Useful and Aesthetic Drawing.

I men

ii

(rfteo eniplo)^d in nseful drawing simply for explanatory pur-
poses. When this is done there is no pretension to imitate nat-
ural colouring, still less to produce agreeable atrangemenis of
hues. The colours used are only employed to make the nature
of the materials more intelligible, as pale yellow may stand for
deal, yellowish brown for oak, and Indian ink for iron. In the
same way a certain conventional representation of texture is
often admitted in useful drawing. Viollet-le-Duc was very fond
of indicating the direction of the grain of wood, as Albert DQrer
did when a piece of woodwork (which he understood as well as
a joiner) occurred in one of his engravings.

Whatever is given in usefiil drawing it invariably omits one
great quality of nature, and that is mystery. This is one of the
noblest and best attainments of modem artistic drawing and
painting, though it was quite unknown to the ancients, and has
not been consciously aimed at by the modems until compara-
tively recent times. It is a charming and poetical quality in
advanced art, expressing man's sense of the infinity which lies
everywhere around him ; but it is not of the slightest practical
use, and so of course it is rigidly excluded from all drawing
executed for purposes of utility, where it would be nothing but
an inconvenience. For the same reason useful drawing dis-
cards all effect which interferes with absolutely clear delineation ;
though, as we have already seen, it accepts certain effects of
simple light and shade, which help to make solidity and sub-
stance more intelligible.

Drawing for purposes of simple utility might be practised far
more generally if its real limits were properly understood. Ar-
tistic drawing and painting are so attractive, so splendid, so
predominant, that people almost invariably look upon useful
drawing as an unsuccessful attempt to reach a kind of art which
is at the same time more emotional and less exact. A topo-
graphic draughtsman, instead of being estimated on his own
merits as a truthful describer of places, is judged as if he were
~ artist who did not know how to arrange his materials. The

20 The Graphic Arts.

traveller who has learned to draw people and things with feir
accuracy, but without attractive manual skill, thinks that it is
necessary to hand his simple, truthful work to some clever
draughtsman on wood to be made into brilliant sketches for
publication. The illustrated newspapers waste money without
end in putting shade on drawings which, do what they will with
them, can never be really artistic,* when the shading, which is
perfectly worthless from the aesthetic point of view, prevents
anything like delicate truth of line. There are illustrated news-
papers out of England which are entirely vulgarised by strained
efforts to look artistic, whereas the accurate delineation of truth,
without useless and false effect, could be got for less money,
and would make the papers valuable as permanent records of
contemporary history. Again, if the simple delineation of truth
were appreciated at its real value, there is no reason in the
world why any daily journal which is printed upon good paper
should not insert illustrations of an explanatory kind whenever
there was any need for them. Illustration might be ten times
as much used as it is if the real purpose of it were steadily kept
in view, and not confounded with the purposes of a higher kind
of art.

There is another reason why it is desirable that useful drawing
should be more valued than it is. At present there are hosts of
practical amateurs in every civilised country who, for the most
part, are wasting their time in fruitless attempts to imitate the
manual cleverness of the popular artists in the exhibitions.
There is plenty of useful work in drawing which such amateurs
might easily learn to do, and to do in quite a satisfactory man-

* I do not mean that no drawings in such publications as the Graphic
and the Illustrated London News can ever be really artistic, but that
there are numbers of drawings necessarily issued in journals of that class
which can never rise above simple utility. The fact is, that woodcuts in
journals come under two categories, the useful and the artistic It is a
waste of money to try to make the simply useful cuts look as if they were
artistic

Useful and Aesthetic Drawing. 21

ner^. Archaeotogy, topography, and the natural sciences open
boundless fields for useful or instructive illustration, whilst all
the schools in the kingdom are ready to receive as gifts what-
ever collections a careful and studious draughtsman might be
pleased to form. The true cause of the discouragement of
amateurs is not that they are earning no money, since money is
not their object, but that they are producing thankless and pur-
poseless work. Useful drawing ought not to be either thankless
or purposeless. It is not founded on vanity or pleasure, but on
truth. It is to the drawing of great artists what the plain narra-
tive of an honest eye-witness is to the artful inventions of a
novelist or a poet, inventions which are devised expressly to act
upon the feelings, and in which all the resources of accom-
plished skill in the use of language are employed to give glad-
some or melancholy pleasure and to lull the power of criticism
to sleep.

I have written strongly in favour of useful drawing because,
itovci its inability to give aesthetic pleasure, it is always likely to
be undervalued by cultivated people. I wish it to be appre-
ciated for itself, for the honest service which it can render to
many kinds of knowledge ; and 1 regret that it should ever
be compared and confounded with artistic drawing, when each
ought to stand firmly on its own basis. You do not expect a
good newspaper reporter to have the charm of a literary artist,
so why despise a plain truth-draughtsman because his work is
without pictorial seductiveness?

The necessity for keeping the two kinds of drawing well sep-
arated is felt quite as strongly on the artistic side as on the
other. Many artists, especially German artists, have allowed
useful drawing to get into pictures, and there it is out of place.
Even in engravings such as those of Albert Diirer, it is not really
an artistic advantage that the engraver should draw benches and
tables with the care and attention of a well-educated joiner;
Rembrandt's way of treating furniture is better in great art.
The hard manner of Maclise, borrowed (perhaps unconsciously)

22 The Graphic Arts.

from German models, is also useful drawing out of {^ace ; the
loose and apparently careless drawing of Josef Israels (espe-
cially visiNe in his etchings) is far better suited to artistic ex-
pression of a high order. If a general rule could be stated it
might be something like this : The purpose of useful drawing is
to explain the construction of an object, but the purpose of
artistic drawing is to produce a visual effect to which full con-
structive explanation may be an impediment The artist knows
as much as the draughtsman, but he ought not to insist upon
his knowledge. A poet may have studied geography, but he
must not write like a geographer.

Drauiing for Aesthetic Pleasure.

CHAPTER III.
DRAWING FOR AESTHETIC PLEASURE.

THE kind of drawing practised by artists of all kinds has for
its chief pnqsose the production of aesthetic pleasure, —
^^^leasure in which there are the most various degrees of dignity
and nobleness, a pleasure which may elevate and strengthen our
nature, or corrupt it like a vicious indulgence.

The variety of the effects produced in us by the various kinds
and degrees of aesthetic pleasure is enough to prevent any care-
ful thinker from extolling or condemning it absoliiiely. We our-
selves live in an age when a remarkable movement is taking
place in the Anglo-Saxon peoples which looks like the awaken-
ing of dormant aesthetic instincts. Those of us who have at-
tained middle age were born in a time when beauty was not a
subject of any interest to the mass of Englishmen and Ameri-
cans, and we have witnessed a gradual change in the Anglo-
Saxon spirit which is leading it not only towards beauty, but
towards a new kind of reasoning about the fitness of things dic-
tated by aesthetic considerations far more subtie and profound
than the simple question as to whether an object is beautiful or
ugly by itself. Our fathers, the Englishmen of the last genera-
tion, knew as weil as we do that there are beautiful things in
the world — they knew that the best Greek statues and the best
Italian pictures were beautiful things which might reasonably be
desired by rich men like the Duke of Devonshire, but they did
attempt to bring the common things around them into har-
y with aesthetic taw. In the present generation very many
are really trying to do this, trying to arrange the external

24 The Graphic Arts,

and visible things of life in such a manner as not to violate the
aesthetic sense of suitableness. Many things which our fathers
did we feel to be wrong and out of place. For example, if a
great opportunity, like the arrangement and decoration of Tra-
falgar Square, were offered to us now, we should hesitate about
putting the statue of Lord Nelson, like Simeon Stylites, on a
column just behind that of Charles I. on a pedestal ; and we
might, perhaps, be alive to the necessity for making the National
Gallery important enough to hold its own against the buildings
in its neighbourhood. It is true that we permit great incongru-
ities, that we allow relative injury to be inflicted on public build-
ings by huge erections near them, as Westminster Abbey is
dwarfed by Queen Anne's Mansions ; but we are at least sensi-
ble of the wrong : and in this we differ from our fathers, who
did not know that a building could be at the same time injured
and untouched. In a word, we are beginning to understand
artistic relativity, to feel aesthetic pleasure when it is observed,
and aesthetic suffering, or discontent, when it is violated;
whereas the whole conception of artistic relativity, and of any
pleasure or pain that might be connected with it, was foreign to
our fathers' minds.

The idea of so ordering things that their mutual relations may
be pleasing to the aesthetic sense is the foundation of culture in
the fine arts. Truth, in these arts, is altogether subordinate.
They do, no doubt, include and even require most extensive
and subtle knowledge of natural truth, but it is only to avail
themselves of it when it happens to be agreeable./ A highly cul-
tivated artist knows twenty times as much about nature as the
most accurate, matter-of-fact draughtsman, and yet the artist con-
stantly sacrifices truth to composition. 1 He sacrifices it, also, to
the idealisation of natural forms, to emphasis in lines, and to the
concentration of natural light-and-shade and colour. All these
are necessary to the artist, because without them he cannot give
that aesthetic pleasure on which his fame and fortune entirely
depend. These arrangements and idealisations are, iif fact> the

Drawing for Aesthetic Pleasure* 2$

artist's especial and peculiar work; it is these labours which
distinguish him from the simple draughtsman.

Of all my doctrines about art, this doctrine concerning the
sacrifice of truth appears to be the most hard to receive. From
a sentiment which is respectable in itself, the sentiment of grati-
tude to great artists for the pleasure which they have given and
give still, though they lie in their dark graves, those who love
their work can scarcely endure to hear it said that they had not
absolute veracity. It is supposed that when a critic points out
their deviations from truth he does so with the intention of
blaming them, just as in the ordinary intercourse of life it would
be an attack upon a man's character to say that his word was
never to be depended upon. It is high time that this misun-
derstanding should cease, and with a view to its cessation I will
explain the matter in this place as clearly as I may be able.

The want of veracity in the ordinary intercourse of life is
quite justly the subject of severe blame, not only because it is
morally wrong, but because those societies where it is habitual
are disintegrated by it ; for when no man can trust another it is
impossible that the social machine should work harmoniously.
Notwithstanding this, the license to say what is not true has
always been accorded to poets, who are never blamed for avail-
ing themselves of it to any extent whatever, provided only that
their fictions be interesting or agreeable. They go far beyond
the mere permission to invent fictitious narratives ; they affect,
even when speaking in their own persons, and not through the
mouths of their characters, all kinds of sentiments and beliefe
which are not really their own, when the sentiments and beliefs
seem poetical. A Protestant poet does not in the least hesitate
about writing like a Roman Catholic if any doctrine of the
Church of Rome happens for the time to suit the poetic effect.
Sir Walter Scott, though himself an Edinburgh Presbyterian,
could aflfect, for purposes of art, the most absolute belief in
the reality of the Pope's spiritual powers, and their heavenly
origin:

26 The Graphic Arts.

* The Pope lie was saying the high, high ooasSy
All on Saint Peter's day,
With the power to him given, by the saints in heaven^
To wash merCs sins away.

The Pope he was saying the blessed mass.

And the people kneeled around.
And from each man^s soul his sins did pass

As he kissed the holy ground,*

In this case the reason for the assumed belief is obvious, but
it is a purely artistic reason. The poet could not have got so
fine an opening on any other terms. The slightest expression
of doubt would have chilled all the lines that followed.

Every reader will remember the pretty pantheism which opens
the fifth canto of the ' Lay i '

* Call it not vain : they do not err

Who say, that when the poet dies
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper.
And celebrates his obsequies.*

Here the poet, after fully indulging his fancy, knew that he
was asking rather too much firom the reader's power of make-
belief, and fell back on a more customary kind of superstition.
* Not that,* he goes on to say, * inanimate things can mourn, but
they are peopled with ghosts who really do mourn, with the
ghosts of those whom the poet celebrated, and who are grieved
at the loss of his sjmapathy and of the fame it brought them.*

Not only do poets often affect to be superstitious, they also
affect ignorance when it seems more poetical than knowledge.
Well-educated modem poets, acquainted with geography, affect
antique ignorance of remote lands merely to give them the kind
of glamour and mystery which accurate knowledge dispels.
Every poet knows that precision of place and date spoils the
enchanting effect of poetry ; that if places are mentioned at all
they had best be those of which no mortal can exactly deter-
mine the modem locality, such as the places of the Arthurian
legend ; whilst the most glorious subjects for poetry in the

Drawing for Aesthetic Pleasure. 27

erents of the present day, such as the tragedy of Queretaro, and
Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily, are spoiled for this generation by
I the too truthful precision of the newspapers. See how gladly

^fc^jWilliam Morris avoids such precision when he begins a tale :

' /s a far country, that I cannot rtaiai,
Aad oa aye.tr iong ages past away,
A King [here dwell, in real, and ease, and fame.
And richer than the Emperor is lo-day.'

^^^^^ ma

The poet pretends to be unscientific and not to know too
much of history, which has come to him in vague yet powerful
and affecting legend, which he is at liberty to mould afresh in
the telling. It is a part of his art and craft to assume these
affectations which nobody blames in him. To write scientifi-
cally would be to abdicate his proper function.

If we do not blame poets for those deviations from veracity
which belong to their craft, why should we blame, or be sup-
posed to blame, painters for doing exactly the same thing?
And why should painters themselves, and their admirers, be at
such needless pains to prove that they are true still, after criti-
cism has pointed to their deviations from nature simply to show
w/iat art is, and not in any hostile spirit? There is nothing
wrong in a painter's arbitrary treatment of his subject, but critics
do wrong when they attribute to him a merit which he does not
possess. The object of every painter who is really an artist is
to awaken aesthetic emotions. If he does that, no matter at
what cost of truth, his purpose is attained, and all that can be
fairly said against him for not being truthful is, that when his
deviations from the truth of nature are too glaring they attract
our attention and prevent us from enjoying those aesthetic emo-
tions which we desire. It follows from this that as the public
which the painter addresses becomes itself more advanced in
the knowledge of natural truth he must give as much more of it
may be necessary to satisfy the spectator, but not in the least
any moral obligation ; the real reason being that he has to

28 The Graphic Arts.

keep the purity of aesthetic emotion, which is of the most ex-
treme delicacy and always liable to be disturbed by questions of
a scientific character, foreign to its nature. For the same rea-
son the wisest artists are carefiil to avoid, when they can do so,
the painting of too much truth, because the public cannot un-
derstand more than a limited quantity of it ; and the doubts and
questions raised by excess of truth are just as injurious to emo-
tional effect as those awakened by its deficiency. If this state-
ment of the case is fair, as I believe it to be, the reader will now
see clearly how little praise or blame can properly be attached
to mere truth in the works of artists, except so far as it may
reveal knowledge or ignorance. An artist is not bound to tell
the truth with his pencil or brush, but he ought to know it, so
as to have it ready on occasion. It seldom happens that a
departure from truth is injurious to a drawing or a picture when
it is the result of deliberate determination, but it may be fatal
when the result of ignorance. In ordinary life deviations from
truth are pardoned when the speaker knows no better, but se-
verely blamed when he lies deliberately. The fine arts are sub-
ject to another law : in them the wilful falsehood is usually the
exercise of the artistic faculty and the involuntary misstatement
an evidence of insufficient education.

It may seem that in thus combating the vain superstition
about the truth of artists I take away one of the greatest sources
of interest in the fine arts. There can, indeed, be no doubt
that the best way to get a complete though half-illusory enjoy-
ment out of the fine arts is to feel the emotions they excite, and
to believe them to be truthful at the samejtime. I well remem-
ber the delightful enthusiasm with which I fully believed, in
youth, that the enchanting scenes of Turner, especially in his
' Rivers of France,* were faithful portraits of actual localities, —
an enthusiasm much more complete and entire than my present
admiration for the craft of the artist coupled with absolute un-
belief in his topographic fidelity. Yet, on the other hand, if
a more perfect knowledge of the devices of art brings us to a

Drawing for Aesthetic Pleasure. 29

condition of distrust as to its representation of facts, we come
to possess a far keener and deeper appreciation of the artist's
subtle wisdom and skill, and of th^ thoughtful labour bestowed
on work for our enjoyment with so little ostentation that the
most of it is concealed. Our admiration is transferred from one
quality to another. We believed that artists were truthful, but
after having discovered our mistake we find a compensation in
a new pleasure, the aesthetic pleasure : the delight in beautiful
or grand arrangements in art independently of any previous
occurrence in natiure.

The doctrine that artistic painting is done for aesthetic pleas-
ure, and not for truth, is met by artists themselves with various
answers, of which I will select three, the strongest and best.

Some say, * We paint truth, but the ideal, and not the visible,
truth.'

The reply to this is, that as all artists have different ideals,
there is no such thing as any ascertainable unique ideal which
can be properly caUed ideal truth ; whereas we have ascertain-
able actual truth (not ideal) in the reality of the nature which
surrounds us. Ideals are not one, but many and contradictory ;
therefore only one of them, at the most, can be true. For
example, if Turner's ideal is the true one, that of every other
landscape-painter of any originality is false.

Again, some artists say, * We paint things, not as they are,
but as they might be.'

The desire to paint nature as it might be is laudable, but no
artist of any great composing power adheres to it in practice.
The temptation to transgress the bounds of natiu*al law is con-
stant. For example, we very frequently find two systems of
lighting in the same picture, and the perspective, if carefully
examined, will reveal the existence of two or more points of
sight. One of the commonest licenses is to make rays of light,
like the Irishman's gun, shoot round a comer, that a shade may
not be too uniform. Colour and effect, in nature usually very
much scattered, are purposely concentrated.

30 The Graphic Arts.

Lastly, some artists say, * We do not paint truth of fact, but
truth of impression.'

If this rule were adhered to it would produce, though not lit-
eral truth in pictures, yet still a certain mental truthfubess in
artists themselves. The modem French sect of 'Impression-
nistes ' have tried, in spite of ridicule, to carry the theory out
in practice. It is practicable, but only in sketches, not in large
and laboured pictures. If the reader (even supposing him to
be highly cultivated) will honestly put it to himself what his im-
pressions really are, he will find that they have all the character-
istics of a sketch, that they may, perhaps, be clear and vivid in
parts, but only at the cost of extreme vagueness aJud indecision
elsewhere. If such impressions were accurately drawn, and not
filled in firom other sources, they would never present the ap-
pearance of finished pictures. What artists really do with their
impressions is this. They often preserve an impression received
fi:om nature as the nucleus round which the constructed picture
is gathered ; but the details of the completed work were not in
the original impression. All that can be said is that, when the
added details are quite in harmony with the first thought, there
is a certain fidelity to the original intention, but this general
fidehty is not veracity.

Mr. Harding transferred the measure of truth from the artist
' to the spectator by his theory that the artist need only give so
much truth as the spectator was likely to recognise. This is
very much in accordance with my opinion, that the artist should
just escape criticism on the score of truth in order to attain his
real purpose, which is the production of aesthetic pleasure. I
differ, however, from Mr. Harding in my belief that a class of
draughtsmen (not artists in any high sense) might usefully em-
ploy themselves in giving us accurate information about matters
of fact far surpassing our own knowledge. The work of illus-
tration, as I have shown in the last chapter, ought to be reliable
in details of construction and other matters not already known
to the spectator.

Drawing for Aesthetic Pleasure, 31

Before closing this chapter about drawing done for aesthetic
pleasure, I may justly say that the amount of truth contained in
such drawing — the general sum of truth — is often very great
indeed, even when mingled with much fiction and involuntary
error. Nothing is more wonderful than the inexhaustible depth
of the knowledge possessed by great artists. The more we
learn ourselves, the more we find that they knew long before us.
The. greatest of them are so profound that in comparison with
our own science they have almost the unfathomableness of na-
ture. After twenty or thirty years of study we find that we
'.lave not sounded them yet, that our lives are not long enough,
diat most of the things we have acquired painfully were pos-
sessed by them easily. An apparently careless hint will often
reveal their perfect familiarity with some truth that the modem
critic insists upon too strongly because he has rediscovered it
and fancies that it is new. Great artists are full of knowledge,
but they carry it lightly and are never pedantic. For knowledge,
with them, is only a means, and not an end in itself — their
end is aesthetic pleasure. To know the truth clearly, and yet
to reveal only just so much of it as the occasion requires — to
possess it for themselves, and yet never to give it to the world
unmingled with fiction, unlimited by reticence — this is the
characteristic of great artists.

We have still to consider, briefly, the effect of aesthetic pleas-
ure upon the mind.

It is at the same time a culture and an indulgence. The
most austere moralists set their faces against it as wholly evil.
Others, less austere, admit it in great moderation as permissible,
but no more. Another class of moralists has arisen of late
years, and these advocate aesthetic pleasure as a substitute for
lower indulgences. It is better, they say, to look at pictures
than to get drunk in an ale-house. There still remains amongst
men of business and scholars a certain dread and jealousy of
aesthetic pleasure, as being likely to interfere with money-getting
<Nr unattractive studies.

32 The Graphic Arts.

What may be fairly said in favour of aesthetic pleasure is that
it gives our life a charm which is wanting to science and wealth
so long as the aesthetic sentiment is absent. Imagine the case
of a rich man, well provided with matter-of-fact information, yet
whose life and mind are in all respects absolutely unadorned by
art. Imagine him living in some hideous street, with hideous
furniture around him. Let it be granted, if you will, that he is
so dead to the beauty and charm of visible things as not to
suffer from their absence — still, such a man's life would be
imperfect and incomplete. He who knows the enduring charm
of that visible beauty which is the outward sign and symbol of
intellectual beauty, and which, in a world of illusions, is one of
the firmest realities, would be content with an humbler fortune,
and even with less extensive positive knowledge, if only his life
might be passed amidst lovely natural scenery, in pure translucid
air, with the sight of fair architecture and noble painting. Many
have found in the unfailing quiet pleasure which these things
afford, and in the elevation of mind which they favour, a con-
solation and a compensation for the neglect and indifference of
their contemporaries. Many an artist who has failed in the race
for fame has found happiness in the glory of nature and in the
masterpieces of those men of genius whom, if he could not
rival, his studies had at least taught him to appreciate.

The only real danger in the love of aesthetic pleasure is that,
by seductions the more tempting that they seem so innocent, it
may diminish our combative power, make us less energetic in
politics, commerce, and war, above all, less resolute morally,
less disposed to put up with what is unpleasant when we ought
to put up with it. For the fact remains that aesthetic pleasure
is an indulgence which increases our sensitiveness to many dis-
agreeable influences, and makes us try to avoid them, whereas
it may often happen that our plain duty would take us into the
very midst of them. The keen delight in lovely natural scenery
is accompanied by a shrinking from ugly places, whieh dis-
qualifies us for living in them even when we ought. The love of

Drawing for Aesthetic Pleasure. 33

art indisposes us for going far away from it, and yet most of the
hard work in the world has to be done in places where there is
neither architecture nor painting. This, and the loss of time in
dreaming about beauty, are the principal dangers of aestheticism,
but every pleasure in the world is evil in its excess or in its
perversion. Surely we may grace our lives with the charm of
art, and yet keep them dutiful and energetic.

Artists themselves incur far less risk of weakening the moral
fibre by aesthetic indulgence than simple lovers of art, because
nobody can become an artist without submitting to long toil
and bearing up against hope deferred. The discipline of prac-
tical art is quite as much moral as manual. Good work is not
only the result of natural cleverness, but of a training in the
virtues of industry, docility, and self-restraint To labour on
till the hair is grey, often through decades of disappointment,
to be always himibly trying to do better, to be still at school in
the maturity of life and have your skill called in question and
your knowledge denied by those who have not a twentieth part
of either — these are conditions which require a degree of moral
firmness all the greater that the artist gets no credit for it. No-
body will believe that his work is work, yet, happily for himself,
it is both labour and discipline. Pursued actively, the fine arts
have little of the character of an indulgence ; it is the languid,
passive enjoyment of them which may become harmful. The
enervated connoisseur in T?ie Woman in White could not have
borne the strain of a day's work, but he could sit in his easy
chair and taste, in his feeble way, the wine that the much-toiling
artists had grown for him in their vineyards.

34 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER IV.

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE GRAPHIC ARTS.

WE have seen that drawing may be done either for truth
or for aesthetic pleasure ; that illustrative drawing of aL
kinds ought to be done for truth, and artistic drawing for pleas-
ure, not so much the pleasure of the artist himself (for to him
his production must always be a labour and a discipline) as the
pleasure of the spectator. We have now to consider the con-
nexion of these two very different kinds of drawing with educa-
tion.

Useful, or illustrative dragJTigy is jr^vftlnaLhli^ as_.an assistance
to literary or verbal explanation. By itself it is not of very great
use. Imagine, for example, how limited would be the interest
of an illustrated newspaper if only the cuts appeared, absolutely
without words. We should not know, and if there had been
no literary explanation of similar matters elsewhere, we should
not be able even to guess, to what personages or incidents the
woodcuts referred. A king or an emperor, unless he actually
wore a crown upon his head, would be to us simply an officer
in uniform, or a gentleman in civil dress. Men of the highest
intellectual distinction, of the most splendid feme, would appear
simply as human bodies with more or less intelligent faces, and
more or less well-fitting clothes. Landscapes, in which remark-
able events had just happened, and which owed all their interest
to such events, would represent only so many acres or square
miles of the earth's surface. Appearances very frequently de-
pend for all their interest upon our knowledge of something
which the appearance does not in the least convey, and conse-

Educational Influences, 35

quently which a graphic representation of the appearance .would
equally fail to convey.

This truth was ' borne in upon ' me many years ago by a
certain scene in the Highlands. Imagine a lovely afternoon in
summer, a noble lake asleep in its basin, with only the slight
silvery disturbance of faint local breezes, and on one side of this
lake a fair bay, sheltered by a rocky promontory ; just one of
those places which a poet or a painter would choose for delicious
dreaming — a place where he might forget hfe's hard realities^
and live, for a golden hour, in harmony with the divine beauty
of the world. I am not describing the place from imagination
but from clear memory, and not from gwieral^ recollection only,
but from its aspect on One particular dfay.*^! remember how
painfril the smiling beauty of the water was to me that afternoon.
Whyp^ful ? Because a young man, whose parents lived in a
lowly, thatched cottage ^d by. had been swimming in that
bay in the morning, and had been seized with cramp and
drowned, and his body lay down in the deep water below that
beautifril surface. The graphic arts could not tell you that.
The most skilful painter could only give you the visible beauty,
whilst missing the invisible tragedy, and so the whole painfulness
of the scene would be lost to you. Perhaps the artist, if he desired
to impress your mind with a vague sadness, might accomplish
it by a picture of grey and melancholy weather, under a rainy
sky, with ' wan water ' rippling against the cold, hard rocks ; but
the more melancholy he rendered the appearance of the scene
the Luther would he wander from its true significance. What
affected me was the indifference of natiu*e to the* fate of man,
it is that which touches us far more closely than any fictitious
sympathy of sad-coloured cloud or sighing wind. The cottage
looked peaceful in the pleasant sunshine, but the Hght knew
nothing of the human sorrow there !

Again, in the description of character, graphic art fails for a
similar reason. It can only describe what is visible, but the
depths of character lie far below the surface. In all highly

36 The Graphic Arts.

civilised societies the deadliest hatreds are clothed with outward
courtesy, and the most vicious natures appear decent and well
conducted. The painter can, of course, make hatred and other
bad passions visible, but in so doing he misses the main point,
which is the deceptiveness of appearances, the quiet success of
well-disciplined hypocrisy. And even when there is nothing
that can be properly called hypocrisy, when we do no more
than simply not expose our thoughts and feelings to the public
gaze, when we innocentiy and honourably keep, as it were, the
key of our own house, there are truths about our innermost feel-
ings which literature, even the simplest prose, can teU easily and
clearly, whilst they entirely escape the most subtle revelations
of line and colour.

Another great defect of the graphic arts is, I will not say an
absolute incapacity for narrative, but certainly an awkwardness
and clumsiness which make these arts almost unable to tell any
sequence of events without the help of verbal explanation. The
best example of painted narrative which we possess is Hogarth's
* Marriage k la Mode,* but without the elaborate titles of the
different scenes we should not quite perfectly understand the
story ; and even as it is, at the best, it is but a few pages torn
here and there out of a novel. The largest historical picture is
but a single page of history.

The effect of these deficiencies on the educational value of
the graphic arts is very considerable, and I do not wish to un-
derrate it. They amount to this, that when truths are contrary
to appearances they cannot be represented, and that when the
sequence of events is at all intricate or elaborate the graphic
arts cannot, of themselves, explain it. These are most serious
objections to anything which is proposed as an instrument of
education.

Again, the graphic arts are often most inconveniently com-
pelled to go beyond knowledge. I hold it to be one of the
greatest conveniences of literature, as a means for imparting in-
formation, that the writer is never really compelled to say more

Educational Injliiatces. 37

ttiern he knows. This is because literature has the resource of
general expressions, and in the graphic arts there are no general
expressions. If the reader will go back to some incident in his
own recollection, separated from the present by some distance
of lime, be will find that he can state it inily, but not draw it
truly ; and that the truth of his verbal statement is due to that
excellent quality of words by which they permit us to keep
within our knowledge. Going back as far as I can in memory,
I remember meeting a man on a road when 1 was a child, and
the man stopped and spoke to me very kindly. I can go a
little farther in precision, and say that the man was a gentleman ;
farther still, and say that he was an ofhcer. This is all I know
of him now, for the little incident occurred forty years since.
Try as hard as I may, I cannot recall his face. I clearly re-
member what he said to me, but that is not to our present
purpose. Tliis is a true account, because I am allowed to use
general terms ; but I could not draw tlie incident truly, because
I should be forced to give the officer a (ace, yet have not the
slightest recollection of his face.

Just in the same way the human race remembers things said
to it, or done for it, long ago by superior persons, of whose
visible features it has now lost all recollection. The historian
can narrate these incidents truly, because he is never comjjelled
to portray : the painter is under compulsion to give specific
forms, and gives them wjien they cannot be true.

Even when the features of one or two persons principally con-
cerned in an historical scene are known to us the subordinates
are unknown. In the most interesting scenes of all, the prin-
cipals themselves are unknown. The more seriously an artist
attempts to paint the life of Christ the more painfully will he
feel the necessity for painting another person who is only a
model or an actor like the modem Christ at Ammeigau,

The graphic arts are very nearly useless for historical instruc-
tion except when the artist had himself actually been an eye-
of the scene represented, and even then he requires

l^^tion e*

38 The Graphic Arts.

great self-denial to teU plain truth, as the scene, however splen-
did, is almost sure to be much less artistic than that which
an artist's imagination would have invented. Mr. Prinsep's
great picture of the * Proclamation of the Queen as Empress of
India/ is a case in point The scene itself was gorgeous in the
extreme, but Mr. Prinsep would have made a much more pic-
torial work if he had been at liberty to use his imagination.
With all its splendour, and notwithstanding the number of its
figures, the picture is formal and meagre : faults that every able
artist avoids when he has his own way.

The graphic arts may be of great use for archaeological illus-
tration when there is no necessity for truth of incident or for the
portraiture of persons. For example, an artist who combines
archaeological knowledge with the needful technical skill, may
show us how the Greeks or the Romans lived with a vividness
iax surpassing our own imaided imagination. So much archae-
ological knowledge is accessible now, after the laborious re-
searches of specialists in every branch, that most of the details
of costume and ways of living are ascertainable; and if the
artist has imagination enough to clothe these dry bones with
life, and throw himself heartily into the past, he may give oiu:
sluggish minds an invaluable help and stimulus. Not only
should such an artist be well acquainted with details of furni-
ture and costume, but he should be able to feel and render the
permanent natural characteristics of the countries where the
ancients lived. The classical school of David, in France, failed
in its attempt to revive the past of Greece and Rome through
archaeological ignorance and blind indifference to atmosphere
and landscape. In the works of Alma Tadema, the most care-
ful study of antiquarian detail is united to an artist's vivid recol-
lection of the colour and sunshine of the South ; so that his
Romans are not only dressed in their own costumes and sur-
rounded by their own things, but they live in Italian light and
breathe Italian air.

The advance of general culture tends to put archaeological

Educational Influences. 39

painting in the place of historical incident-painting, and fron
the educational point of view the change would be desirable
Historical painting, as it was understood until very lately, is a
most unsatisfactory art unless it is considered exclusively as
picture-making. I mean that historical pictures might be well
composed and richly coloured, but they gave wrong information.
They might be hung in galleries as examples of clever painting,
but it would have been worse tha^ useless to hang them in
schools as a means of public instruction. Archaeological pic-
tures, on the contrary, which aim simply at the most truthful
possible revival of past aspects of human life, which show how
a Roman lady went shopping, how Roman gentlemen reclined
at meals, how their shady gardens and cool houses looked in a
Roman summer, how the pitiless thousands gazed down into the
arena whilst the gladiator lay bleeding on the sand, or the Chris-
tian virgin stood pale as she awaited the spring of the panther ;
pictures such as these are a powerful help to instruction. They
supply exactly what our idle imaginations need. It is a heavy
labour to reconstruct from verbal descriptions what the eye has
never beheld. The painter undertakes this labour for us, and
evokes visions of the past which if not always absolutely true
are still a far closer approximation to the reality than anything
we are able to imagine without his aid. Out of the dead and
ticketed collections in museums, out of the dust of ruins, and
from scattered passages in old books, he reconstructs, with the
help of the light and life still to be seen on the earth, the life
which is seen no longer.

We have observed that the graphic arts can only deal with
the visible, and that when there is a contradiction between the
appearance and the reality, when the invisible reality is of
importance, the graphic arts fail from incapacity to explain it.
We have also seen that they are often inconveniently compelled
to go beyond accurate knowledge, and so become inaccurate,
when what is really known is too general. There is nothing in
graphic art corresponding to the word * animal * in language.

40 The Graphic Arts.

You cannot draw a creature which may be either a man, a
porpoise, or a chameleon, nor a plant which may be either
quercus robur or draba vema. We have seen that the want of
general terms makes the graphic arts awkward and inconvenient
to use for many didactic purposes. Their inefficiency in nar-
rative has also been fully admitted. Their great use for archae-
ological illustration has been acknowledged. We have not yet
touched upon their greatest weakness as a means of instruction,
which is, that they cannot reason.

I am far from sharing the Philistine belief that the training of
an artist does not develop the reasoning power, for I am well
aware that artists constantly exercise it with regard to their own
work, and often with remarkable keenness and subtlety. At
the same time it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the inca-
pacity of graphic art for reasoning with the spectator ; and this,
from the educational point of view, is a very serious incapacity
indeed. Mathematical studies hold their place in education
because they develop this special power of reason; but the
reasoning process is always carried through in language, and
the diagrams are only illustrations by which the process could
not be followed without the help of words. It will be under-
stood that with this incapacity for argument, painting is not,
nor can it ever be, the chief educational power which must
always be either speaking or writing. Even drawing done for
educational purposes only, and not for pleasure, can never be
anything more than an illustration of oral teaching, an assist-
ance which every wise educator would gladly welcome, and
which is far too much neglected ; but museums full of drawings
could never teach our children if the voice of the master were
silenced, and the printed page withheld from them.

The most earnest advocate of the graphic arts must be con-
tents-then, to accept for them a secondary place in education,
but a secondary place is very different from no place.

Our fathers simply excluded the graphic arts from the edu-
cation of gentlemen. These arts were admitted in feminine

Educational Influences. 41

education, but with reference only to a mild kind of -aesthetic
pleasure, not as an exact discipline. Were our fathers in the
wrong?

They do not seem to have reasoned or thought about the
matter. Classics and mathematics occupied their available time,
and the desire for thoroughness in these was enough of itself to
indispose them for an3rthing else. The idea of thoroughness
alwa3rs makes men accept limits to their mental activity. We
see this constantly in the professional spirit.

So far as we are able to understand the state of our fathers'
minds with regard to the graphic arts, it appears to have been
simply a state of preoccupation. They were preoccupied with
other matters. It had been settled by the conventionalism of
the time that drawing was not a necessity, but an ornament, or
what was called an *• accomplishment,' and the most manly and
substantial kind of education was thought to be better without
ornaments and accomplishments. Cardinal Newman, in his
book on University Education^ expressly cautions young men
against the supposition that drawing can cultivate the mind.
He begs them to remember the distinction between education
and accomplishments, and tells them not to forget that drawing
is only an accomplishment.

Of late years other influences have been at work, and it is
believed by many that our forefathers made a mistaken estimate
of drawing — that they undervalued its educational power. It
is believed now, by an increasing number of able and influential
persons, that the graphic arts are much more than accomplish-
ments, that they are a discipline, and a discipline not only of
the eye, but of the mind. I fully share this belief, and am pre-
pared to give the reasons for it.

The graphic arts act upon the mind in two distinct ways, which
answer to reading and writing in literature.

You may study work already done by others. This answers
to reading. It requires the same attention as reading, and when
the painter is imaginative, it requires, like the reading of poetry

42 The Graphic Arts.

an effort of imagination in the student. The educational effect
of this kind of study is principally to make us more observant.
We notice things in nature, as Browning tells us, when we have
seen them painted, which without that aid we should never
notice at all. But besides making us observant of what is
within our reach, the graphic arts give us clearer conceptions of
what lies beyond it. Past times and distant countries are, by
their help, made, as it were, visible for us. Intricate details of
construction, which could not be understood from verbal de-
scriptions alone, are made perfectly intelligible by illustration.
Literature itself has gained greatly in recent times by the study
of drawing and painting. Some of the clearest modem writers
— Thackeray, Th^ophile Gauthier, William Black, William Mor-
ris— have acquired from the graphic arts some of the good
qualities which make their writings what they are ; and many
others, amongst whom Browning stands first, have shown so true
an interest in these arts, that it may be presumed they have
found mental nutriment in them and not amusement only. It
is not possible to estimate the extent to which we, the people of
the present day, are indebted to drawings and paintings done
by others for the clearness of our ideas of things. Thanks to
them, not a few of the great personages of history are, as it were,
persoils whom we have really seen. Thanks to them, the life of
Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and Holland, has been recorded
for us ever since the invention of oil-painting, not so fully nor
(except in the case of Holland) so accurately as it might have
been, but still with a clearness far surpassing the possibilities of
our unaided imagination. Even the England of the eighteenth
century lives for us still in the works of Reynolds, Gainsborough,
and Hogarth. So keenly are all intelligent people now sensible
of the capacity of graphic art for this especial service of giving
clearness to our conceptions that the feeling of gratitude for what
it has done is often lost in regret for what it has neglected, or
was not in time to do. What would Christendom give for a
set of authentic and faithful pictures of the life of Christ, not

Educational Influences. 43

graceful compositions like those of Raphael, nor ethnological
and archaeological efforts like well-intended modem attempts to
recover the irrecoverable truth, but real portraits of the Master
and the disciples as they sat together or walked by the lake in
Galilee ? The strength of the desire to have the past portrayed
for us is proved by this, that rather than go without any illustra-
tion of the narratives which most deeply interest them, people
will pay for pictures constructed (as they are well aware) with-
out any authentic documents. Even in the most truthful of
these representations, aided by the exactness of modem research
and the facilities of modem travel, the most important portions
of the work, the faces of men whose portraits are unattainable,
are as far from the tmth as ever.

Drawings and pictures not only help our culture by giving
clearness to our ideas of visible things, they also help it by
stimulating the imaginative faculty in us.

Imaginative activity in the student is necessary to successful
study of all kinds. It is especially necessary in the study of
literature, for without it the student only follows sequences
of words and observes the application of grammatical mles.
With it, he follows the thoughts and conceptions of his author.
Unfortunately, however, the imagmation is often sluggish, and
needs an external stimulus, which may be given in various ways.
The most influential Churches employ the fine arts to stimulate
the religious imagination, and enable the believer to get out of
the vulgar surroundings of house and trade and rise to a higher
region. The Church of England, for this purpose, employs
music and architecture chiefly, but does not absolutely exclude
painting. The Church of Rome and the Greek Church employ
painting lavishly. All students of literature might have recourse
to graphic art for the same reason. It gives wings to the mind.
A picture seen in the heart of Manchester may carry us in an
instant to the isles of Greece and the

' Laughing tides that lave
- Those Edens of the Eastern wave.'

44 The Graphic Arts.

Only the imaginative mind, aided by the labours of painters,
can ever quite fully emancipate itself from the tyranny of the
present and the immediate — the ugly street, the dull atmos-
phere, the busy crowd. Without such aid the world is only
what we see from our own windows.

Besides carrying us instantaneously to the remote in time
and space, the graphic arts, by their action upon the imagina-
tion, have a constant tendency to increase the delicacy of oiu:
perceptions. They produce an endless succession of verj
various emotions, seldom strong enough to be actually painful
yet often verging on pain ; seldom so pleasurable as to rival the
joy and delight of our very happiest moments, yet reflecting
and recalling them as planets reflect sunshine. These gentler
fictitious emotions which the arts excite in us are an exercise
for our feelings and prevent them from sinking into apathy.
No one who enjoys and appreciates the graphic arts in any
large and comprehensive sense can be dead or dull in feeling.
His thoughts cannot be without tenderness or pathos ; he can-
not close his mind against either the gladness or the sorrow of
his fellow-men. It is not the splendour of painting, the rich
colour and gorgeous accompaniment of gilded frame and palace
wall, which make us proud of the influence of art, but the vast-
ness of its sympathies with all humanity and with creatures
inferior to humanity. Nothing is too humble for its loving
observation, nothing too strong or terrible for its fearless scru-
tiny. One great artist will paint a poor old woman, laden with
sticks in winter, coming alone wearily through the wood, so
that you want to be there and carry the burden for her ; another
will paint Julius Csesar marching at the head of his legions ;
and both Caesar and the old woman are quite equally within
the all-embracing range of art. It has introduced peasants
into drawing-rooms, and Dutch boors, with their humble pleas-
ures of pipe and pot, into the most exclusive houses. If there
were a personal, conscious Muse of Art, she would smile in
quiet self-congratulation at these victories over human apathy

Educational Influences. 45

and pride. She would chuckle to think that Jean Francois
Millet, of Barbizon, had made somebody pay six thousand
guineas to see how two ignorant French peasants could say
their evening prayer in a potato-field.

If the graphic arts, through the work of others, educate us in
knowledge of things and in sympathy with mankind, they have
another educating power when we actually practise them our-
selves. This is clearly proved by the high degree of intelligence
attained by many artists who have received little education out-
side of their art itself, and who very seldom, and never for long
together, place their minds within the educating influences of
literature. Practical art has so strong a tendency to take pos-
session of its man that it leaves, in many cases, hardly any
possibilities of culture beyond its own limits. A few painters
of exceptional gifts may, like Rubens and Leighton, distinguish
themselves as linguists ; a few, like Cooke, may have a taste for
science ; here and there a distinguished artist may have passed
university examinations or written a successful book, but most
artists confine their serious mental activity to the practice of
their profession ; and it is a remarkable proof of the educating
influence of art itself that these men, whose general education
is so limited, should so often have the subtlety and delicacy of
perception which belong to extensive culture. This, however,
need not surprise us when we look deeper into the matter ; for
the chief business of all culture is to enable us to distinguish
difierences in spite of resemblances, and this every artist is
constantly doing in his own work. Although he deals with
appearances, he cannot represent even the appearances faith-
fully without considering much that lies below the surface ; and
as art is not by any means mere ocular imitation, but an intel-
lectual analysis first, and a calculated synthesis, full of ingenious
compromises, afterwards, it affords a most valuable training in
the two great mental exercises of discrimination between things
which exist already, and the invention of things which are to be
brought into existence. This is enough to account for the

46 The Graphic Arts,

indubitable fact that artists have a degree of culture quite be-
yond what might be expected from men whose minds are so
little exercised in scholarship and science. But besides the
constant training in analysis and synthesis, practical art teaches
us to consider the effect of what we do upon the minds of
others^ and so gives us the craft which enables men to deal
successfully with human nature. This is a dangerous skill, —
a skill, I mean, which may be dangerous to the possessor of it,
for he may be tempted to exercise it unfairly ; but it is one of
the results, and one of the most desired results, of culture. ' Les
artistes^ said a distinguished Parisian critic to me, * sont les
plus ruses des kommes* They are constantiy occupied in the
art of winning men by a certain kind of persuasion, in which,
although the voice is silent, there are many of the devices of
oratory. The painter, like the orator, directs attention most
strongly to that which will awaken interest or give pleasure ; he
keeps in subordination the facts which do not serve his pur-
pose, and carefully leads attention away from them j he does
not state truths impartially, but selects and emphasizes them.
Every painter who has studied the public taste has found out
its vulnerable side, and has learned the craft which all must
learn who have to influence mankind.

We said, in passing, that a few artists have shown an interest
in science — meaning science outside of art ; but in treating of
education by drawing we must not forget that the graphic arts
include a natural science which has a fair claim to rank with
the other natural sciences. If the graphic arts only placed
us in communication with the minds of able men, they would
still be interesting, like the study of musical compositions ; but
they do much more than this, they bring us face to face with
nature itself and with the mysterious, ever-present Power of
which nature is the material expression. This is the reason why
the graphic arts are a pursuit of inexhaustible interest. Every
pursuit which includes the study of nature, be it even the
smallest comer of nature, opens infinite horizons and gives

Educational Influences. 47

matter for observation without end. There is a satisfaction to
the mind of man in finding itself in contact with natural law
which sustains it in labour without any external reward. The
mere privilege of studying Nature closely is in itself such a
pleasurable form of education that no one would ever willingly
leave her school who had once been so fortunate as to enter it.
Her most eager and industrious schoolboys are grey-haired
men ; her highest prize is not fame or wealth, but the happiness
of the awakened inteUigence. This may account for the fact,
that however modest may be the worldly success of artists and
men of science they neva: seem to regret the time devoted to
their studies. When they regret anything, it is generally the
interference of intrusive necessities and obligations which have
made them, at times, unwilling slaves to what the world con-
siders more serious interests. Even the unsuccessful — those
whom there are * none to praise ' and * very few to love ' —
have found a solace and a consolation in the study of nature by
which neglect and poverty have been borne more easily. The
world may despise them, and critics condemn, but Nature, the
infinitely patient teacher, is there still, repeating year after year
the same lessons of unfailing interest and beauty.

Finally, practical art has one distinct advantage over all purely
intellectual pursuits, which is, that it does not educate the mind
only, but also the eye and the hand. I am well aware that a
foolish prejudice, which if it is dying out is dying too slowly,
considers this training of eye and hand a mark of degradation,
because the skilful use of these physical organs assimilates the
artist to the artisan. Some people — but not the wisest — are
as proud of having idle and useless hands as Chinese ladies
are of their useless feet. With these, all reasoning would be
a waste' of time; but to others who have no such prejudice, I
may offer a few remarks in favour of this ocular and manual
education. Let it not be supposed that the education which we
gain fix>m the graphic arts is by any means limited, in its effects,
to the actual practice of those arts themselves. The eye which

48 The Gtaphic Arts.

is trained by drawing discerns form everywhere and in every*
thing ; the hand wliich is skilled to use pencil or brush will
be generally superior in delicacy and accuracy of touch to the
hand which has never been taught The question, therefore,
is not simply whether we care to be skilful in drawing, but
whether we prefer a keen eye to a comparatively blind one, and
a ready hand to a clumsy one. There are a thousand things to
be done in ordinary life, as well as in different trades and profes-
sions, in which accurate sight and sure touch are desirable.
Surely a branch of education which gives these, not as substi-
tutes for intellectual analysis and synthesis, but in addition tc
them^ has so much the more in its favour.

a$ui Wrtmg. 49

CHAPTER V.

RIGHT AND WRONG IN DRAWING.

THERE are two leading schools in art criticism which ought
to bear separate names, as they are quite distinct in their
methods, and in their results. They have never been named
yet, but they might be called the School of Censure and the
School of Inquiry.

A critic who belongs to the School of Censure begins by as-
suming a most exalted moral and intellectual position. How-
ever young and ignorant he may be, he treats artists de haut en
bos as prisoners at the bar, who are to receive acquittal or con-
demnation from the judgment-seat. He has the clearest notions
of right and wrong in art When a work has the luck to please
him he pronounces it to be right, and when it goes beyond his
little knowledge, or outside the narrow limits of his taste, he
says that it is wrong. He does not condescend to explain the
reason for these decisions. Irresponsible, accountable to no
one, he sits supreme, like the Mahometan Allah, raising some
to glory, and he cares not — casting others to perdition, and he
cares not.

The School of Censure is founded simply upon personal
taste. The best critics of that school are men who honestly
and sincerely believe that they have a monopoly of right judg-
ment in matters of art Sometimes they declare their opinions
to be based on moral grounds, which it is wrong to question.
He who ventures to think differently is a heretic, and incurs cen*
sure not less severe than that visited upon the practical errors of

50 The Graphic Arts.-

the artist There are sins of opinion and sins of practice —
that is to say, independence of thought and action.

The School of Censure is founded upon authority — upon
the personal authority of the critic ; and authority of that kind,
which has no consecration from a superior power, has to be
supported by the strongest possible self-assertion. * I know the
right and I know the wrong, this is right and that is wrong ; and
if you ask for a reason it is because I say so, that is reason
enough from me to you.'

The School of Inquiry follows another method. It repudi-
ates the notion of authority; it is doubtful of individua]
judgments, including that of the critic himself; it examines,
compares, offers the results of its examination and compari-
son, but always as results that may be considered subject to
continual revision. In this school, the pride of the critic, his
pre-eminence and success, are not to lead the fashion and in-
fluence the market, but simply to throw a Httle mcMre li^t upon
the true nature of the work that is done. It is my desire to be
a faithful and dutiful servant and scholar in this school, and to
work in strict obedience to its principles.

What, then, according to the principles that I profess, would
be the distinction between right and wrong in art? Cleariy not
my personal preferences, nor yours ; we may state them just for
what they are worth, which is not very much, but we cannot set
them up as an authoritative standard or * norm.' These being
excluded, what remains to us?

In an earlier stage of criticism the ready answer would have
been, * Truth to nature.' Unfortunately, in the present day, we
know too much for such an answer to be acceptable. We
know that great art is often untruthful, and yet we feel that it is
great art still. We know that artists of eminence do not inter-
pret nature in the same manner, that then: interpretations are
not only partial and incomplete, but even contradictory ; and
yet, in spite of these half-statements and counter-statements, we
still acknowledge that the celebrity of these artists is deserved.

RigJit and Wrong. $i

and that they produced good art, though not a scientificalty
accurate transcript of nature. We do not say that they were
wrong, and we do not say that an accurate transcript would be
artistically right

It has been proposed as a solution of the diiHculty that if an
artist paints, not what is or has been, but what might be, he is
right ; but that if he paints what could not possibly be in nature
he is wrong.

This theory is captivating because it looks both liberal to-
wards art and respectful towards nature. Unfortunately, it wiU
not bear the only true test, which is, application to works of ac-
knowledged excellence. Those works deviate from what might
be, from the possible, almost as frequently as they deviate from
what is, from the actual. To attribute tb them fidelity to the
possible is simply an instance of a very common form of super-
stition, which ascribes to some wonderful object virtues which
it does not possess.

It has been said that right and wrong in art is simply the dis-
tinction between the agreeable and the displeasing ; that if art
gives pleasure it is right, but if it is disagreeable it is wrong.

At first sight this theory seems rather more promising than
the other, because it recognises the importance of the pleasure-
giving element in art ; but then comes the difficulty — to whom
is the pleasure to be given ? To you ? To me ? To a French
critic, or to a German? We shall probably receive the most
different degrees of pleasure. Again, according to this theory,
the same picture is wrong at one time and right at another, ac-
cording to the changes of fashion, though its own qualities have
not changed, unless by material deterioration, for the worse.

The truth is that there is no absolute rule of right and wrong
in art, easily learned and easily applied. Right and wrong ex-
ist in art, but they are always relative. We tolerate a thousand
deviations from truth and say nothing about them ; then comes
some one deviation that we do not feel disposed to tolerate,
and we plainly express regret that the artist should have been

$2 The Graphic Arts.

guilty of it. Why this exception? The answer depends en-
tirely upon the circumstances of the case, and I could only
say why the exception is made with reference to some particu-
lar work.

The nearest approach to a general law on this subject is
the law of harmony. All good work is harmonious ; but, then,
unluckily bad work may be harmonious also, in its badness.
However, harmony is in itself a great virtue.

We say that a drawing is harmonious when all the parts of it
are kept in perfect subordination to a predominant thought and
are the issue of a single state of mind. We say that it is want-
ing in harmony when the artist has not had sufficient control
over himself to work as if he were in a single state of mind, but
has foolishly or weakly allowed his various moods to spoil the
unity of his work. This is the harmony of sentiment, but there
is also the harmony of knowledge. If the knowledge exhibited
by the draughtsman in one part of his work is manifesdy and in-
consistently inferior to that exhibited in another, we feel that he
ought either to have learned what he did not know, or else re-
frained from insisting upon what he did know, so as to bring the
exhibited knowledge into a state of at least apparent equality.

Again, there is a technical harmony in processes of which we
shall have much to say, at different times, in the course of the
present volume. Nature may be interpreted almost by any
means if only the interpretation be consistent with itself, but
any inconsistency, even though it be an addition of truth, is felt
to be discordant and offends the artistic sense. A bit of real-
istic painting, in the midst of a piece of decorative painting,
would offend us, and yet the realistic bit would add a certain
amount of veracity. On the same principle, the introduction of
real things upon the stage is an artistic error, when the reality is
surrounded by the fictions of stage scenery.

It follows from this that all the pure methods of drawing, such
as silver-point, lead-pencil, pen, water-colour, &c., are compara-
tively safe ; but that the mixed methods, such as silver-point

Right and Wrong. 53

and pen in combination, are dangerous. In painting, too, there
is safety in all the restrictions and limits, and the more limited
and restricted the technical method is the safer it is, because
the less it is exposed to the danger of inconsistency. When
oil-painting was applied to decorative purposes, like fresco, the
most prudent artists wisely limited themselves to dead colour,
and by this restriction assured to their work a degree of execu-
tive harmony which might have been attained with very great
difficulty if they had yielded to the seductions of transparent
colour also.

Harmony, in the arts of design, is the achievement of a reso-
lute wiU that goes directly to its purpose and does not allow
itself to be tempted in one direction or the other. The great-
est temptation of all is the complete truth of nature of which
harmonious art only selects what it requires, deliberately sacri-
ficing the rest

The collections of drawings by great masters prove clearly
that so long as a drawing is harmonious it need not be carried
fSar. Nothing is more generally to be remarked in the great
men than the firmness with which they could stop short, at any
given point, on the road towards natural truth. They could
stop short in the simplified line, in the flat shade, in the sug-
gested colour, but wherever they stopped their work held well
together.

Besides harmony, a drawing ought to show knowledge ; but
here we meet with one of those strong lines of separation which
divide art from science. It would far exceed the duties of art-
criticism to insist upon knowledge in a rigid and exacting
manner. Many fine drawings by old masters give evidence of
immature, imperfect knowledge, and yet, in spite of this scien-
tific insufficiency, they are rightly valued as works of art. What
criticism ought to do in such cases is to say fi'ankly how far the
work falls short of complete science, for fear of giving counte-
nance to the superstition that the great men of past times knew
everything, but when the deficiency has been fairly stated there

54 The Graphic ArtSn

is no need to condemn the work on aocoont of it Art does
not pretend to scientific perfection ; at the same time it is only
fair to add that artists generally put ten times as much knowl-
edge into their drawings as scientific men put into theirs, but
then the artist will be vulneral^e on some positive, measurable
matter. For example, if you set an artist to paint a starlit sky
he will get certain truths of efiect, such as the gradation of the
sky and its relation to the landsa4)e, but he will probably not
dot the stars exactly in their right places, a feult very easily de-
tected by an astronomer, who would certainly not commit it.
The rule about knowledge appears to be that we may exact
firom the artist a sufficient acquaintance with the knowledge
generally possessed by the artists of his own day. On this
principle a young painter who knew no more than Taddeo
Gaddi, would certainly, and very properly, be excluded firom
the Royal Academy Exhibition for not having made better use
of his superior opportunities. In landscape, our modem paint-
ers know more, and are expected to know more, than the best
of the old masters, because the science of landscape has made
immense progress since the close of the eighteenth century.
Still, notwithstanding these exigencies, mere knowledge, though
a virtue in the graphic arts, is not always an essential There
is a great deal of knowledge in fine work, but there is also very
firequently, mixed up with it, a great deal of honest, unpretend-
ing, simple-minded ignorance.

The notion of right and wrong has been attached to what are
called * industry ' and ' sloth ' in the fine arts. It has been as-
sumed that laborious finish was industrious, and therefore right,
whilst slightness was slothful, and consequendy wrong.

Like most theories about goodness and badness in art this
doctrine seemed of very easy application, but there were two
very weak points in it In the first place, an artist might be
extremely industrious without bestowing any great amount of
finish on particular works. A man who rough-hews blocks of
marble may be not less industrious than a polisher. If I give

Right and Wrongs 55

a hundred hours to one drawing, or ten hours apiece to ten
drawings, my industry is exacdy the same, whilst the intellectual
energy and activity will probably be on the side of the ten, as
they require ten different mental conceptions. But there is this
further difficulty, that no critic can possibly tell with regard to
apparefUly slight performances whether they have cost much
labour or not Any tyro in criticism can see when there are a
great many details, but the greatest labour of art is not in these
— it is often in composition, in tone, colour, expression, and
here whatever labour is unsuccessful is concealed by entire
obliteration. When obliteration is not possible, as in drawing
with pen and ink, the labour may have been bestowed upon
previous trials, which the artist is careful not to show, as the
labour of a poet is often thrown away (so far a^ any measurable
result is concerned) on verses, stanzas, or even whole poems,
which are never sent to the printer. My argument is, that no
living himian being, except the workman himself, can tell what
pieces of work have cost him great labour or little labour. Even
finish itself is deceptive, and often seems to contain more down-
right assiduous toil than was ever put into it ; but the greatest
deception is on the other side, in the seemingly slight work
which looks as if it had not cost an effort, and which incurs
strong moral condemnation from critics who have so little
understanding of art that they do not know how labour is
applied in it

The virtues common to all drawings that we value are har-
mony and a feir amount of knowledge, the knowledge required
being only that of the time when the artist was alive. So with
regard to artifices in the arrangement of materials, a well-informed
critic would be dissatisfied with an artist who appeared to be
unaware of the artifices known and practised in his own day.
At the same time we admit into our collections many drawings
by great masters of past times in which these artifices were not
resorted to, and we value these drawings in spite of their com-
parative simplicity and artlessness. "

56 The Graphic Arts.

In Mr. Harding's Principles and Practice of Art, he severely
criticised several old masters for their ignorance of modem rules
of arrangement, and reproduced several of their drawings in
evidence. He quite succeeded in proving that they were not
'up to the dodges/ if I may borrow a colloquialism of the
studios, but the reader wiU probably agree with me that we have
quite enough of these in modem art. For my part, I know
these artifices so well, so much too well, that I am sick of them,
and get back to the simplicity of elder art with a delightful
sense of refreshment. I know all the modem mles of compo-
sition, which anybody with common abilities can master in a
week, but they have never inspired me with any profound faith
or abiding enthusiasm.* It is pleasant to think that so many old
masters worked in happy ignorance of this critical legislation of
the future, but a modem is expected to know about it, and it is
not safe for him to be ignorant of it. The right way is to know
the mles and pay them a sort of limited and independent atten-
tion.

Mr. Harding does not seem to have reflected that in drawing
old works over again on modem principles to show the supe-
riority of these principles, he had taken away everything that

♦ One of these rules is, that every long line should be interrupted, but
there are many cases in which obedience to this rule would enfeeble the
expression of sentiment. For example, on the first page of the Biography
of Paul Chalmers, R.S.A.y there is a drawing of * Montrose,' by Mr. George
Reid, R.S.A. In this drawing the town is seen beyond the bay, and the
water goes straight across the drawing without interruption. There is no
foreground but some desolate land near the river, which flows towards the
bay. Any ordinary artist, with a respect for established rules and little
feeling, would have made the desolate foreground picturesque by put-
ting something there — a cottage, or a cart, or some trees — to cut across
the white line of water ; but Mr. Reld, who has the higher artistic sense,
knew very well that the whole character of the scene would have been
destroyed if he had done such a thing as that, and so he gave the dreary
water without interruption, by which apparent absence of artifice he
infinitely enhanced the interest of the distant town, a low line of build-
ings with one dominant towen

Right and Wrong, 57

constituted the special interest of the old works, and reduced
them all to the level of modem cleverness. In Plate XII. of
the Principles and Practice of Art ^ he gave copies of two draw-
ings in the British Museum done in pen and wash : one in the
old Italian manner, by Bolognese ; the other in the old Dutch
manner, by Rembrandt, and under these copies Mr. Harding
gave the same subjects with his own treatment and improve-
ments, thus affording us an excellent opportunity for comparing
old and modem work. Mr. Harding's purpose was to show
how hard the old drawings were, and how defective the old sys-
tem (if it was a system) of arrangement ; at the same time he
felt himself competent to demonstrate, by the work of his own
hand, the superiority of modem craft. Certainly, if modem craft
is superior, Mr. Harding was not guilty of any presumption in
offering his own skill as an example of it, for he possessed it to
perfection ; and I am not finding fault with him on that account
All I desire to insist upon is, that if the old masters had followed
modem mles we should have no old masters at all, as, in spite
of dates, they would have been essentially modem.

The drawing of Bolognese represents a large fortified country-
house, built on the level of a small round lake, and reflected in
the water. A road goes half round the lake and makes a sudden
turn in the foreground. Just at this tum stand two figures,
immediately under the castle. Just behind the castle rises a
conical hill with a small fortification on the top of it, and there
is another conical hill, stiU higher, to the right, which has also a
little fort upon its summit ; beyond these are distant hills, and
to the left a glimpse of sea. The whole is in clear sunshine,
probably that of some bright Italian aftemoon. The execution
is of that simple kind which every student is familiar with in
the drawings of the old masters : plain pen line, and a few fiat
washes one upon another. It is not brilliant execution, and it
does not pretend to be, but it quite conveys the impression of
clear light and serene peace.

In Mr. Harding's improvement of the same subject everything

58 The Graphic Arts.

is altered to suit the picturesque taste which prevailed in Lon-
don about the year 1845. '^^ Italian casde was felt to be
too square and simple in its masses, and too low down to be
efTective, so a tower was placed at each end, and an imposing
structure, flanked by towers, was made to rise as a central mass
behind the principal entrance, the whole building being set upon
higher ground. The little fort on the smaller conical hill was
developed into a grand feudal castie, the building on the second
hill was removed, and the hill itself lowered and altered in shape,
so as to make it duly subordinate to the central object. The
sky, being too monotonous, was variegated with a fine effect
of cloud. The circular lake was replaced by a sheet of water
stretching across the picture, and communicating with the fore-
ground by a stream. All lines were carefully interrupted by
trees planted on purpose, and the treeless road by the margin
of the lake was replaced by a bit of the regular modem sketch-
er's rustic lane, with a cart on it and two figures, a dark one
and a light one, for opposition. The space of distant sea was
omitted because its flat line made a trian^e with the hills.

This is an account of the improvements in detail. The origi-
nal drawing, in the modem artist's opinion, was wrong, and he
was determined to set it right ; but please observe how com-
pletely all these alterations have destroyed its character. The
little circular lake, with the large formal casteDated mansion
rising directly from its level, the two curious conical hills with
the littie forts on their summits, the clear outlines of the distant
mountains, and the expanse of level sea^ all these things gave
to the Italian drawing a strong and peculiar character, which
the improver dealt with quite mtWessly. Siihh improvements
as these are effected at the cost of everything that gives any
special interest to the older work. They are like those dreadful
alterations by which old housej^and gardens are arranged to
suit modem requirements ; alterations for which there is gen-
erally not the slightest real necessity, and which are simply the
laborious expression of a want of sympathy with the past.

Rigkt and Wrong. 59

With the two drawings before me I can only say that the old
one has a local character of great originality and interest which
quite disappears in the modem one ; and that the very ckar-
ness and continuity of its lines are a part of that local character,
and recall the bright southern atmosphere, which the modem
improver seems to have exchanged for that of the Scotch high-
lands. As to its defects in composition they are fully counter-
balanced in the improvement by defects of an opposite nature.
In the old drawing we see that the artist was simple-minded ;
in the new one we meet at every step with obtrusive evidence
of self-conscious intelligence.

The changes in the new version of the Rembrandt landscape
are not so revolutionary, but they are slill a substitution of one
character for another. In every group of trees, in every eleva-
tion or depression of the ground, a modem grace and science
are debberately substituted for the old-fashioned simplicity of
the great master. On glancing from one to the other we
perceive clearly enough that art had made much prc^ess in
the direction of cleverness during the interval, but the progress
is not all gain. The old workman did not, like the modem,
seize upon every available opportunity for forcing nature into
the most convenient shapes, and for getting the most effective
contrasts, but there is a dignity in the older work which is
better than the prettiness of the modem. We feel that Rem-
brandt's landscape is serious, and that under certain effects it
might be solemn, whilst Harding's is only brilliant.

I have often wished that it were permitted to modem artbts
to work in the quiet temper of the old masters, I do not say
that the old masters produced more learned work than some
of the modems ; but there is clear evidence in their drawings
that they were not constantly troubled by the anxiety to shine,
or by the necessity to amuse. Some of the very best and
greatest of them had in their drawings what we Englislimen
value so much in manners — the straightforwardness which does
lut effort, and makes no personal display. When I com-

6o The Graphic Arts.

pare modem art with modem literature I often see reason to
regret that they should not be more upon an equaKty with
reference to the requirement of clevemess. A man may write
simply if he likes, and nobody finds fault with him ; but so
soon as he draws or paints with the simpUcit)' of a serious old
master he is scomfully told that he does not understand his
business !

Here we are nearly at the end of the space allotted to our
chapter, and we have not yet arrived at any very satisfactory
definition of right and wrong in drawing. If there were no right
and wrong that would be very sad and discouraging, would it
not ? It would be a shock to our moral sense and a damper to
our hopes of substantial and unquestionable excellence. Well,
I have mentioned two virtues that may be considered certain,
namely, harmony, and a certain amount of knowledge. Besides
these there are many other virtues, but not one of them, that
I can think of, is common to all good drawings whatever. I find
after looking at great numbers of drawings that one will have
conspicuously one virtue and another another : that one will be
sincerely and humbly faithful, another boldly and grandly im-
aginative ; that one will have exquisite lines and be as flat as a
Dutch field, whilst another will have no lines to speak of but be
powerfully modelled. I find that serene, sweet-tempered pa-
tience constitutes the charm of one man's work, whilst the most
fiery impatience arouses me, like the gallop of cavalry, in that
of another. Learning commands my respect in some designs ;
and then perhaps in the same museum, in the same room, on
the same wall, I come upon some bit of loving work done with
little science that wins and moves me more than all the leaming
in the world. And the final conclusion to which all these works
of art have driven me is, that they are just like so many living
human beings who have seldom more than one or two strong
and vigorous virtues to redeem their failings and their faults,
and who are esteemed and respected even when they have
these. And as the different professions aid the development

Right and Wrongs 6i

of certain special virtues, often at the expense of others : as the
soldier strengthens courage within himself, and the physician
mercy, and the priest chastity, and the lawyer sagacity, and the
merchant prudence, so the different divisions of the graphic
arts give separate encouragement to the different virtues of
drawing. The burin and the silver-point encourage purity of
line, charcoal teaches vigoiu: and truth of chiaroscuro, water-
colour the refinements of delicate hues, and oil the force of
strong ones ; but as for uniting all these virtues together in one
work it ought never to be expected. It is enough for a work of
art to have the quality of its own order.

62 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER VI.

OF OUTLINE.

THE earKest attempts in drawing were in outline, and out-
line is used still for various purposes in artistic and sci-
entific work.

Amongst artistic drawings those in complete outline are the
simplest. Their two merits, not always compatible, are beauty
and truth of line.

Truth of line implies not only truth of modulation but a due
observation of the angles at which the lines run relatively to the
horizon and also of their proportionate length. When angles,
length, and modulation are faithfully observed, the lines are said
to be true, although the use of them is in itself a conventionalism.
If the lines are right in length and direction the spaces enclosed
are sure to have the right shape, so that true line-drawing be-
comes, by a consequence which need not be sought for con-
sciously, true space-drawing at the same time.

The truth of linear drawing has nothing whatever to do with
the thickness of the line, for an outline may be of any thickness
provided only it be not variable. If it is variable in thickness
then the eye is embarrassed in its choice of one side of the line
or the other as the real contour. Again, the shaded side of an
object cannot be properly represented by making the outline
thicker on that side, though this has often been done, very
irrationally. The unreasonableness of it is proved by the con-
sideration that the thick black line comes generally where the
shaded side is lightened by reflection. The darkest place on a
sphere or cylinder is not at the contour but nearer to the middle.

Outline. 63

rawing should, therefore, take no account whatever of j
light and sliade. Its fiinction is simply to detach spaces with- I
out giving the dme and trouble necessary to fill theoi up. This 1
will be understood in a moment by a reference to geographical |
work. A simple line is enough to detach land from sea and one
state from another. Nothing m all the range of the grapliic arls
does so much with so little labour as an outline. A line which
any good draughtsman could put on paper in one minute will
make the difference between nothing and a portrait in proiile.

The value of outline drawing has been very variously esti-
mated by artists. It is not much cared for at the present day,
for reasons which will be given shortly. Two or three traditional
anecdotes which have come down to us from classic times, and
which are too well known to need repetition here, seem to in-
dicate that the ancient Greeks thought more of the simple Ime
than we do, and cared more for the manual skill which could
produce it to perfection. In our own time outline is chiefly
used as a means of education in elementary drawing, and for
architectural and ornamental purposes. Painters hardly ever use
it in its purity : they may occasionally have recourse to it as a
convenience, but they do not keep to it, in which they are
guided by a sure instinct, for outline belongs to an essentially
early stage of art, and is not compatible with those habits of sight
and thought which are, or ought to be, the habits of painters
in an age like ours, when their art is technically complete.

AU drawing began, in primitive times, with simple outline ;
and the next stage was to fill up the spaces so mapped out
with flat colour, but the ouUine was still preserved for a long
time in all its hardness of definition. The first notion of draw-
ing which occurs to man is to mark out the shapes of things in
profile with a hard line. He seems to conceive of objects as
if they were cut out of some flat material, and he thinks that
when he has mapped out the contour he has done enough.
The notion of modelling in drawing seems to have developed
itself very gradually, and even in an age so advanced as our

64, The Graphic Arts.

own every ineKperienced student draws trees as if their branches
went out to right and left, but never came to meet him. The
first thing that strikes us in this choice of outline is, that the
use of it involves a degree of definition far exceeding any-
thing usually found in nature, and that it is only after some-
what advanced study that we begin to perceive how rarely
/natural objects are vigorously and completely detached from
each other. The power of seeing things as they actually ap-
pear to the eye, with all their confiision and mystery, all their
intricacy, all their disguises of accidental light and shade, and
colour, is a power which comes to us very late indeed, after a
very slow and gradual education. All primitive drawing simpli-
fies and detaches objects, and copies them in its own way, one
by one, without any conception of their pictorial relations. So
long as the mind of the draughtsman remains in this primitive
condition outline is his natural expression ; but when he begins
to see more of nature, when he begins to perceive the confu-
sion, mystery, intricacy, which we have just been talking about,
outline ceases to be enough for him. He begins to feel that it
is true only in a very narrow and conventional sense ; that it is
often inevitably false, if drawn at all ; and that even its best
beauty, the line of beauty which the skilled Greek artists drew,
is still, however gracefiil, however pure, only a very limited and
special kind of beauty, in a world which offers much else for
pur study and admiration.

■^ The practice of drawing in outline involves a special danger
to the student, which ought not to be passed in silence. It
concentrates his attention so much on the contours of things
that he ceases to perceive what is within them, and then he be-
comes the victim of a peculiar illusion. He fancies that because
he knows the coast he knows the country. So much form can
be explained by outUne that it gets credit for still more ; and
the draughtsman is innocently persuaded that the fUlt white
spaces which his lines enclose actually contain the modelling
which he vaguely imagines for them. To ascertain how little an

Outline. 65

outiine really gives or encloses you have nothing to do but paint
a picture from a severe outline drawing, you will then discover
that the outline does little more than start you, and that the
supplies of material for aU your subsequent labour have to be
drawn from your own stores of knowledge, or from, the activity
of your own imagination.

There may, of course, be outline within outline, just as in a
map of England we may have the coast-line first, which is the
contour, and then the divisions of counties. In the Ordnance
map we have even the fields, still in outline, which answer to
very minute details in artistic drawing. There is, therefore, such
a thing as detailed outline drawing, which appears very full of
matter at the cost of little labour, and it is quite true that such
drawing convejrs more facts than can be conveyed by any other
kind of design, with equal clearness, in the same space. It is
the right kind of work for topographic purposes ; but although
Albert Dtirer often made use of it for distant landscape it is
dangerous in fine art, except for memoranda, and dangerous
even for these also unless the artist follows at the same time
some other form of study which presents things in their proper
visual relations. The practice of Albert Dtirer ought not to
mislead the modem student. He was a skilfiil draughtsman in
his own way, but not a good example for us to imitate. It is
said sometimes that he knew nothing of aerial perspective, but
that is only one of his deficiencies, or rather, to speak more
accurately, it is only a part of his one great deficiency. H^'
never drew things in their mutual relations, as we see them
when we see several things at once ; he drew first one thing as
if it had been an isolated object, and then another thing, till his
paper or plate was covered.

Outline drawing may be practised with advantage as a part of
an artist's education for two reasons. The first of these is that,
unless we have drawn in outline we cannot know how many
delicate beauties are hidden in the subtle varieties of line ; the
next is because outline, though hardly ever used by artists

\

66 The Graphic Arts.

throughout an entire work, is often employed by them in por-
tions of works where it is useful for some special reason. The
principal convenience of it is that it will indicate the presence
of objects, and give at least a good idea of their forms without
involving the necessity for shading, a necessity from which, un-
der certain circumstances, the artist may be glad to escape.
Rembrandt set the example, in etching, of using outline in what
may seem a partial and capricious manner. It was partial, cer-
tainly, but not capricious, being dictated in every instance by
the desire to avoid shading in some portion of the plate where
shading would have produced some degree of dulness or heavi-
ness. It was one of Rembrandt's artifices to keep large light
spaces and large dark spaces in his plates, and it was a con-
venience to him to put very little shading in the light spaces.
This he managed, as in the ' Hundred Guilder ' print, the * Beg-
gars at the Door of a House,' and other etchings, by using
almost pure outline in the light parts, or outline in combination
with a little shade, purposely kept much slighter and paler than
in nature. If the reader examines the work of other original
etchers he will find that they often have recourse to the same
artifice. It is extremely convenient in etchings of landscape,
because there is a great technical difficulty in observing accu-
rately the distinctions between the palest tones m etching, and
this is avoided by simply indicating certain objects in outline, a
device which explains their presence, yet does not encumber
the plate with too many lines.

Before leaving the subject of oudine we may take note of a
curious fact about the use of the ruler. If you are drawing any-
thing with a straight line in it, such as a new building, you will
always find a ruled line quite inadmissible in every kind of pic-
turesque design, though it is the basis of architectural drawing.
You may make bulges in your line, or you may tremble and
make ripples in it, or you may make it lean to one side or the
other, and any of these faults shall be readily forgiven you, but
if you are so ill-advised as to rule your line, there is an end to

Outline. 67

the charm of your performance. What is curious hi this is that
the ruled Hne, in those cases where it is used at all, is generally
much truer than anything which the unaided hand can draw. I
remember talking about this subject to a French critic, who
maintained that the reason why the ruled Hne was disagreeable
was because it was untrue, yet surely in many things, such as
the comer of a new house, a ship's mast, or a tightly stretched
cord, the ruled line comes nearest to the truth. My conviction
is that the question is not one of truth but of harmony. The
ruled line is offensive in picturesque drawing because it is seen
at a glance to be of a different origin from every other line
about it, and so subordinate in fine art is truth itself to har-
mony, that we all positively prefer visible error to a glaring
technical discrepancy. This is the main reason, but there is
another, which is, that of all lines those produced with a ruler
are the least interesting. The pleasantest of all architectural
drawings are the first rude sketches of imagined edifices, in
which the lines are never straight.

I do not attach much importance to the often-repeated
remark, that there are no lines in nature, by which it is intended
to imply that linear art is of necessity inferior to that which is
lineless. The rank of the fine arts is not determined so much
by. their imitative resemblance to nature as by their power of
aesthetic and intellectual expression. We know, of course, that
lines are not really imitative, as lineless colour may be, but they
are most valuable and convenient as a means for expressing
human knowledge and feeling, and are not likely ever to be
entirely abandoned so long as art shall be an expression of the
human spirit.

Outline is used in the very earliest stage of an oil-picture for
mapping out the first spaces of the dead colouring, but such
outline is of a very rude and simple kind, I mean in modulation.
In length and main direction it is carefully studied. All delicate
modulations are given afterwards in the painting.

Hard and decided outlines, delicately modulated, are often

68 The Graphic Arts.

used as a basis for decorative painting, and left visible after-
wards. They make the work much less costly in time, and as
they are not disguised the conventionalism is readily admitted.

Thick black outlines are used to a great extent in large
modem wood-engravings for the purpose of detaching figures.
In these the outline is purposely overwhelmed by abundant
shading, so that few people notice it, but it clears up the subject,
of course at the cost of truth, as we shall see when we come to
wood-engraving.

These thick outlines in wood-engraving answer to the lines
which some modem painters leave visible in their least laborious
works. Such lines are a conventionalism by means of which
the painter can get through his work more rapidly. There
would be no objection to them if they stood alone, because then
their conventionalism would be unconcealed, and they might
even be filled up with flat tints withoutxontradiction ; but when
they are combined with any attempt at complete modelling
there is an artistic incongruity, because if the modelling were
really complete it ought to be able to detach objects without the
help of lines. The truth is that when lines are used in oil-
painting other than purely decorative, they are a cheap expe-
dient by which the artist spares himself labour in tonic relations
and in modelling. You may separate objects easily enough
by an outline, but it requires careful labour to do as much by
delicate light and shade.

The qualities of line divide the graphic arts into two great
schools, the classical and the picturesque, but these are of so
much importance that the linear differences on which they are
founded will require a chapter to themselves.

Classic and Picturesque Lines. 69

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE CLASSIC AND PICTURESQUE LINES.

IT is the character of linear modulations which determines
the difference between the classic and the picturesque
line. All drawing comes under one of these two heads — it
is either classic in style or picturesque, at least in its main
principle, however remote its classicism may be from that of
Phidias, or its picturesqueness from that of Rembrandt.

The difference between the classic and the picturesque
modifications of line has its origin in two states of the human
spirit, by which its sympathies and interests are directed
to different objects or to different qualities of the same
object.

The classic spirit is animated by the delight in organic
perfection, the picturesque spirit by an interest in the pe-
culiarities of character and in the effects of accident and
time.

In the two kinds of drawing it may happen that the modu-
lations are equally minute. The essential difference is not
in more or less of minuteness, but in the relation to organic
perfection. It does, however, happen, as a general rule, that
the modulations of picturesque lines are more sudden and
violent than those of classic design. They are at the same
time more numerous and more distinctly countable. In pictu-
resque design the changes of direction in line are often abrupt
and unforeseen ; in classic design the changes of direction
may be frequent, but they are seldom abrupt, and are so lit-
tle unforeseen that our knowledge of structure always lead&

70 The Graphic Arts.

us to expect them, whilst much of the pleasure derived from
that kind of drawing is in the sufficient, yet delicate, satisfac-
tion of that expectation.

It is not desirable, in the interests of culture, that either
the classic or the picturesque principle should become so
dominant in the modem schools of art as to reign there un-
opposed.

If the classic spirit reigned exclusively, nobody would
draw anything that was not in perfect repair, and this would
at once exclude from the materials of art all those things
made by men of which the interest is chiefly romantic or
pathetic. Besides this, the predominance of the classic spirit
would extinguish our interest in humble and homely things.
The classical draughtsman is not only indifferent to the
world around him, but disposed to regard it with contempt
The most picturesque cities in Europe and all that charming
rustic material which occupies such artists as Millet and
Fr^re, would not afford him as much aesthetic pleasure as a
bit of antique earthenware, if only the lines of the pot were
delicately modulated and pure.

If the picturesque spirit reigned exclusively, there would
be an end to all severe study of beautiful form, as that would
not be considered sufficiently lively and amusing. Sculpture
would fall down to the level of those lifelike statuettes of the
fishing population which are sold at Boulogne-sur-Mer, or
of the Tam o'Shanter and Souter Johnnie at Alloway. Ar-
chitecture would be planned and schemed for the artificial
picturesque in which all sorts of arrangements are consid-
ered permissible if they are quaint and unexpected, and
in which artifice tries to gain the appearance of accident.
Painting would flourish still, but would confine itself to
such material as tumble-down buildings, rough soldiers and
peasants, animals, and wild scenery. Nobody would paint
the naked figure. Etching would flourish, on condition of
avoiding what the painters avoided ; but line-engraving, al-

Classic and Picturestjue Lines. 71

ready pursued by few, would be absolutely and finally aban-
doned.

The liberty of individual taste, which has resulted for us
from the experiments of the past, has this good consequence,
that both the classic and the picturesque principles of draw-
ing are alive and active together. Each is appiieii according
to the taste of the artist and the subjects which he prefers.

The love of ideal beauty and the desire for perfection lead
us to the classic line; a healthy interest in common things
leads us to the picturesque line.

Once adopted, each of the two principles gets possession
of its man and pushes him forward in its own direction. The
danger of studying line for its own beauty is that its ten-
dency is against modelling and against effect. Pursued too
ardently it leads back to flat Greek vase-painting, with its clear
outlines and flat tints within them. I have even been told
by a true believer that all art which goes beyond the firm line
and fiat wash is debased and degraded art; that the firm line
and fiat wash are the high-water mark of painting, and that
evanescent lines and modelled surfaces are its ebb and deca-
dence. It is certain that firmness of oudine and flatness
of spaces are highly favourable to the severe study of linear
beauty, whilst the study of surfaces is against it.

Severe students of the classic line have often been unfav-
ourable to landscape, a disfavour which is perfectly natural,
because, although beautiful lines are often to be met with in
landscape, the interest of it is generally much more depen-
dent upon light and shade, and especially upon colour, than
on any degree of linear beauty. As, however, the linear
beauty of natural landscape is generally undervalued, I may
beg the reader to bear with a few words in its defence.

Linear beauty is found much more in some trees than others,
and (as a general rule) more in leaves taken individually, or
in small groups, than in masses of foliage. The trunks of
some trees, such as the beech and the plane, are rich in linear

72 The Graphic Arts.

beauty ; whilst others, such as the oak, are more picturesque
than beautiful. Noble mountain scenery, such as that of
Switzerland and Savoy, abounds in lovely lines continually
altered by perspective as we travel ; whilst minor hills, and
amongst these some of the smallest and least imposing, like
those in the south of England, are often exquisite in line.
Some of the most beautiful lines ever to be seen in the earth-
forms are found in the first gentle undulations between the
broad continental plains and the great companies of moun-
tains. Of all natural things, not organized, wind-sculptured
snow is the most perfect in outline and in linear markings.
It effaces the picturesque irregularities of the earth, and sub-
stitutes for them a clean modelling like that of very deli-
cately carved marble, which is sure to present refined out-
lines everywhere. A great variety of beautiful lines may be
found in agitated water, from the low smooth ground-swell,
with its uninterrupted regularity of form, to the tossing and
toppling breaker. After mentioning a few of those natural
things, in which beautiful lines are commonly found, I may
add that it is a mere superstition to suppose that Nature's
drawing is always beautiful. It is sometimes ugly, and it
happens more frequently still that natural lines seem as if
some beautiful purpose had been intended and then very
imperfectly carried out. It is probably this apparently im-
perfect realisation of artistic intentions in landscape which
makes classical figure-draughtsmen so indifferent to it, as the
lines of the nude figure, which they are accustomed to study,
more nearly fulfil the apparent intention.

When artists have a taste for linear perfection they do
well to devote themselves to the figure, and avoid land-
scape, not because they cannot find plenty of beautiful lines
in landscape nature to please and occupy themselves, but
because people are so little accustomed to look for beautiful
line-drawing in landscape that when it is offered to them
they do not perceive or value it. The popular qualities in

Classic and Picturesque Lines. 73

landscape are colour first, then texture, composition, and
chiaroscuro.

The naked figure, or the figure simply draped, is the only
subject in which classic line-drawing fully repays the student.
Here the talent of a refined draughtsman is felt and ac-
knowledged ; in the other forms of art it is generally thrown
away.

74 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF DRAWING BY AREAS.

THIS kind of drawing is largely practised by painters who
study from nature with the brush. It differs widely
from linear drawing both in principle and practice, and it both
springs from and cultivates different habits of sight and
thought

We have seen that if the linear draughtsman made his lines
right in length and direction the areas enclosed by them must
of necessity be the correct areas, although he may never have
given them a thought. If a land-surveyor gets the walls and
angles of an enclosure right upon his plan the area will be
right also. This is the linear process, by which the area
comes right indirectly.

It so happens that in oil-painting there is a great practical
inconvenience in adhering faithfully to the linear process, for
if the painter draws delicately modulated lines at the begin-
ning of his task, he has to follow them out carefully in all
subsequent colourings, which involves most tedious labour,
and ties down the artist by so many petty manual restrictions
that anything like energy of style becomes impossible for
him.

I have had occasion, at the beginning of this work, to re-
mark how closely mental and manual qualities are woven to-
gether in the fine arts. Here is an excellent instance. Any
high degree of mental energy in an oil-painter makes it unen-
durable for him to follow refinements of line during all the

Drawing by Areas. 75

repaintings of his picture, so that if he has fire in his soul he
will neglect the line during the earlier stages and reserve such
attention as he may give to it for the finish. If, however, he
neglects line he must still have something to go by, and he
finds the necessary guidance in the proportions of areas.

People of limited experience, who have some knowledge of
drawing by line but none of the other method, are often sur-
prised when they see an accomplished landscape-painter at
work from nature. Let us suppose that he has to paint a cot-
tage with a thatched roof and a whitewashed wall ; he will
probably put it in with an initiatory patch of something like
straw-colour for the roof, laid on with a large brush, and a
similar patch of white paint for the wall. The edges of both
these patches will be left almost to chance, without any pre-
tension whatever to linear drawing. In painting them the
artist would not begin by the edges but by the middle, and
when he had got them into the right state as a first painting,
the probability is that any thoughtless person looking over his
shoulder would not suppose that there was any drawing in
them at all. There might, however, be good sound drawing
of a certain kind, as the areas, though not enclosed by deli-
cate lines, might be very nearly of the right proportion in the
field of vision. On the other hand, a drawing of the same
cottage in most delicate and observant line, might still be a
bad drawing, if the artist's attention had been so much given
to interesting details of line that he neglected their large pro-
portions and so got his areas wrong. When drawing is deli-
cate and bad at the same time, as it often is, the nature of the
badness may be generally defined as a case of incorrectly pro-
portioned areas.

We may lay it down then as a general rule that drawing by
areas is essentially the drawing of painters, and especially of
oil-painters.

It is still more necessary to a painter of landscape than to
a figure-painter that he should be able to draw correctly by

76 The Graphic Arts.

areas, and to think in the language of areas rather than in the
language of lines, because the intricacy and complexity of
landscape subjects make it impossible to draw out all their
parts delicately at first The figure-painter might keep to a
delicate figure outline ; the landscape-painter could not follow
minute outlines of foliage or herbage. In the instance just
given of a thatched cottage, a perfectly accurate outline would
be full of minute details of straw and moss (perhaps also of
grass and flowers) which could not be followed from the
beginning with the brush without destroying the relations of
tone and colour.

As every kind of practice acts gradually upon the mind of
the workman, and slowly but surely produces an effect upon
his thoughts and opinions, it is always interesting to inquire
what the effect is, and how the workman's ideas are modified
by the particular thing which he does.

What is the effect of drawing by areas? Does it make
painters indifferent to any of the beauties of nature ?

To know what the effect is we have only to refer to the
school in which it is most practised — that of modem land-
scape. The effect here is certainly to make artists indifferent
to elaborate delicacy of line, and this is a distinct loss ; but
it is not without compensation, as this very indifference to
line leaves the mind more free to attend to tone and colour,
which the landscape-painter finds to be more important. For
him, therefore, in spite of a certain loss, drawing by areas is
certainly the best method ; and if he can see all areas in their
proper shapes and proportionate sizes, his eye is cultivated as
it ought to be so far as drawing only is concerned.*

* One of the most unsuccessful landscape-painters, in the worldly
sense, whom I ever knew, was greatly embarrassed to discover the rea-
sons for his failure, as he rightly considered himself to possess at least as
deep a knowledge of nature as his successful rivals. Notwithstanding
this, his failure was easily accounted for. Instead of drawing by areas,
and with the brush, he went by very delicate lines, into which he put an

Draiving by Areas. jy

amount of care and study for which nobody thanked him. He loved na-
ture too much, so that it pained him to alter and compose ; and the con-
sequence was that his works looked as if he were ignorant of composition.
He knew too much of nature also, in a certain sense, which led him to
paint rare effects which people could not understand; but of all his er-
rors (errors, I mean, with reference to his worldly success) the greatest
was drawing by line. There were beautiful lines in his pictures, but they
gave them a look of hardness which made them less liked than far coarser
and more ignorant work.

7& The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER IX.

OF DRAWING BY SPOTS.

THE title of this chapter would have greatly astonished a
critic of the last generation, when spottiness was consid-
ered simply a vice in painting, and had not been developed
into one of the forms of artistic expression.

Methods of execution are good or vicious, according to the
degree of intelligence with which they are done. Even spots
have been developed, by the skill of clever and observant
men, into an artistic language, which has been found of great
use for the expression of certain qualities in nature and a
peculiar condition of the human mind.

We have just seen how painters may draw by areas. A spot
is nothing but a small area distinguished from what surrounds
it by some very visible difference of shade or colour. It may
be of any shape, and need not be of one particular size,
though when going beyond certain limited dimensions it be-
comes what we should call a patch in oil-painting, or a blot
in water-colour. What I mean by the word *spot' in this
chapter is an area of an eighth of an inch in breadth, or less
in small works, and four or five times as much in large ones.

It can be hardly necessary to observe that drawing by spots
is directly opposed to that tranquillity which has generally
been sought for by the greatest artists. Serene great art
avoids them as much as it can, and always prefers broad
spaces varied internally by well-studied modelling.

Nevertheless, drawing by spots is certainly authorised by
Nature in many of her aspects, so that artists who adopt the

Drawing by Spots. 79

method may fairly appeal to her and say that they have au-
thority for what they do. They are, indeed, quite indepen-
dent of any necessity for self-justification, as their work, when
good of its kind, has a striking resemblance to some appear-
ances in nature.

Spots of the most various shapes and colours are produced
in the natural world by different causes. They may be actual
things, such as the pebbles by a brook, the daisies in a pas-
ture, the stars in the sky. They may be small reflections of
light on polished surfaces, such as the glitter on armour, or
small spaces of darkness, such as the little hollows in rocks
under sunshine. They may be mere changes of colour, like
the spots on the hides of animals or the feathers of birds.

Spots of all kinds are much more numerous in full sunshine
than in quiet light, and this is a reason why full sunshine was
carefully avoided by great old artists, and why it is often
sought by clever modern ones. In sunshine there are innu-
merable small cast shadows, innumerable high lights. On
dull days, or in twilight, all these disappear and give place to
quiet breadth.

Artists who like spots are often exceedingly ingenious in
the choice of subjects which admit that kind of interpretation.
In figure-painting they avoid those broad and simple draperies
which the classic artists preferred, and give their attention to
eighteenth-century costumes, which are cut up into little de-
tails by complex tailoring and embroidery. When they choose
amongst the dresses of the present day it is always with the
same purposes, and the still-life represented in their pictures
is full of flicker and glitter. In landscape they like small-
leaved trees with delicate stems and branches, and generally
any small things that will catch the light and make spots and
specks as little flowers do in a field.

Whilst thinking about the subject of this chapter I hap-
pened to look out of a window which commands the edge of
^ wood* It was early in the morning, an April morning, and

8o The Graphic Arts.

the wood was already covered with small green leaves, princi-
pally belonging to the birches. Bright early sunshine darted
through everywhere, with level beams, and after getting
through the entanglements of the trees, many of these beams
hit some rising land opposite. The whole scene was nothing
but specks and spots. All the leaves were dark or bright
green spots, as they happened to be in shade or light The
stems of the birches were revealed by silvery spots, and even
the branches of other trees were traceable only by a confused
glitter in cool or warm grey. The field itself was pied with
buttercups and daisies, and where the soil was not covered
with vegetation, the bare earth showed itself in spots, and so
did the small stones. In this instance Nature seemed fully
to authorise the spot system, except in her sky, which was one
vast space of serene pale azure.

Some of the most important points in the human face, the
pupils of the eyes, the orifices of the nostrils, and the comers
of the mouth, may be represented by spots, and that so ef-
fectively, that a few dots on paper convey a likeness, as we
often see in the slight sketches of caricaturists.

The correct placing of spots requires a power of measure-
ment by the eye, and consequently a power of drawing, not
inferior to that required for accurate work in line. To draw
a space of starlight sky with any near approximation to fidel-
ity, by the eye only, would require the same powers, and the
same training, as linear work, so far as simple accuracy is
concerned.

The inferiority of the spot to the line is that it does not
cultivate the sense of beauty to anything like the same de-
gree, and consequently we find the spot resorted to rather by
clever men than by great men. Skilful painters of costume
and expression, including the whole school of Fortuny, use it
extensively, but it is avoided by severe and serious students
of form.

In landscape it has been sometimes used by great artists.

Drawing by Spots. 8 1

Many fine woodland pictures by the elder Linnell are founded
more upon the spot than upon the line or the area. Con-
stable's love of glitter on foliage led him to study the effect
of spots more than it had ever been studied before his time,
and the results he attained were nearer to those aspects of
nature which he loved than more tranquil and sober painting
ever could have been.

Some artists who have not covered their pictures with
spots have,, nevertheless, made great use of them to give
liveliness and sparkle to their work. The best known exam-
ple of this is Landseer. He was excessively fond of sparkle,
and loved above all things at the finish of a picture to put
light dots on polished bits, stirrups, or armour, and especially
on the bright eyes of his dogs and horses. An inferior
draughtsman could not have put the dots as Landseer did,
just in the right places for effect^ and with the most unhesi-
tating decision of touch.

It should be observed, in conclusion, that drawing by spots
has nothing to do with stipple, which is founded on principles
of its own, to be explained later.

82 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER X.

PEN AND INK.

DRAWING in ink, either with the common pen that we
write with, or with some other kind of pen used more
particularly for artistic purposes, has sometimes been hastily
classed amongst the * imperfect arts.'

What is meant by an * imperfect art ? ' The expression
is used to designate an art which does not render with equal
facility all the aspects of nature. It is an expression which I
have always strongly disliked, both for its want of precision,
as it does not state in what the imperfection lies, and for its
implication that there exists some other art which may de-
serve to be called * perfect.' The expression is objectionable,
also, because it refers only to the imitation of nature, and
takes no account of the human mind, which, nevertheless, is
too important a factor in the fine arts to be entirely left out of
consideration.

Every art described in this volume is perfect within its own
limits. When this is not understood there must be a funda-
mental misconception of the uses and possibilities of the fine
arts. No one who understands them ever expects from them
the complete representation of nature ; that is not their pur-
pose, they are simply means of human expression — means
by which men convey to others their delight in what they see,
and in the exercise of their own inventive power. Consider,
for a moment, how fundamentally imperfect, as imitations of
nature, are the two arts which reign supreme in all the gal-
leries of Europe, th^ arts of carving in marble and of paint-

Pen and Ink, 83

Ing in oil. Sculpture can only imitate massive form, painting
can only imitate moderate light ; yet in spite of such imper-
fections, and many others, these arts are precious to us for
their clear expression of the human spirit. If, then, it is said
of pen-drawing that it is * imperfect,' the answer is that pen-
drawing is perfect within its own limits, and this is enough —
enough for the long line of illustrious artists who have used
the pen nobly, both in studies from nature and in sketching
from imagination.

Every one of .the graphic arts has its limits in the imitation
of nature. Those of pen-drawing lie chiefly in tone and gra-
dation; but here it is necessary to establish a distinction
between what is difficult and what is, in the absolute sense,
impossible. The great artists who have drawn with the pen
have always used it very much within its limits, they have not
required from it as much tone and gradation as it can give ;
and their reason for this reticence was because whenever
tone and gradation happened to be their objects they had
other and more rapid means at command. There is a wide
distinction, in every art, between possibility and prudence. A
delicate line-engraving may be so closely imitated with a fine
pen that few people, at a little distance, would at the first
glance detect the difference ; but no artist who knew the value
of his time would waste it in such foolish toil. If he wanted
delicate tones he would take sepia or bistre and a brush.
Hence the pen-drawings of great artists, though . really full of
refinement, have often what to the uneducated seems a coarse
appearance. This apparent coarseness is always due to the
omission of delicate tones ; yet the omission is wise and right,
not because pen-drawing cannot render such tones, but be-
cause it would be a misemployment of time and care to get
them by its means. An author could, if he gave the neces-
sary labour, learn to make his manuscript like print ; but no
author who had anything to say would accept such a hin-
drance to mental expression.

The Graphic Arts,

The (apparently) coarsest pen-drawings are usually the
work of great artists ; the delicate and highly-finished pen-
drawings are usually the work of amateurs, or else of work-
men who are paid to imitate engravings for the purposes of
photographic reproduction.

Our first lesson in the criticism of pen-drawing must be on
the distinction between real and apparent coarseness. Real
coarseness is deadness of perception, answering to vulgarity
in manners ; but that which looks like coarseness to the un-
educated is only directness and simplicity of expression, in
which the artist purposely simplifies his statement of what he
knows. Great artists, when they take up the pen, simplify
by the omission of tones ; and the more they know of tone
the more they simplify. Again, they very seldom appear to
care about tenuity of line for its own sake ; a blunt pen which
makes thick lines suits them, except in very small drawings,
quite as well as a pen with a fine point. Neither do they
care about making shade imitative of the delicate quality
which it has in nature. In nature it is simply a degree of
darkness without any texture whatever of its own, a veil be-
neath which all the qualities of objects — their roughness or
smoothness, their chromatic brightness or intensity — are sub-
dued in proportion to its thickness ; in pen-drawing the pres-
ence of shade is indicated by lines which, in the best work,
have the least of its natural softness.

The best pen-drawing — that which has been practised by
the greatest masters — is rightly, and wisely, and resolutely
conventional. It is only a partial expression of natural truth ;
and it willingly accepts the falsity of linear shading without
attempting to dissimulate it by making the lines so delicate
that they may be unobtrusive. It expresses form by a de-
cided line and a certain limited amount of modelling. It
loses all delicate light shades in white paper, and it often rep-
resents all intense darks by black blots, without attempting
minute distinctions between the degrees of their intensity.

Pen and Ink. 85

In many of the finest pen-drawings the extreme darks are
omitted altogether, and the forms of nature are sufficiently
suggested without them.

A good example of the sort of work which looks very
coarse, but is not, is a drawing by Donatello in the collection
of the Due d*Aumale, a pen-sketch for some project of an
Entombment.'*'^ All the lines are so thick and rude that if a
poster were drawn on such principles the lines in it would be
strong enough, but what does this rudeness matter ? Dona-
tello was not seeking for delicacy of shade ; he wanted to get
the attitudes and expressions of three or four important fig-
ures with the leading folds of their drapery, and here they
are — one figure especially — clearly conceived and firmly set
down whilst the idea was there in all its freshness. Modelling
is rudely indicated with thick lines for shade and some cross-
hatching running, in the darkest places, into black blots ; so
that a Philistine, who knew nothing about summary expres-
sion in the fine arts and nothing about Donatqllo, might con-
clude that his notions of modelling were* very elementary.
Such conclusions are perilous. Great artists do not always
exhibit the whole of their knowledge ; they give what is suf-
ficient for the occasion.

Michael Angelo was another illustrious artist who used the
pen with a great deal of rough vigour, and in his case there
was sometimes a peculiarity which it is not desirable that any-
body should imitate. So long as he kept within the limits of
real drawing his work was full of grandeur ; but he some-
times, in the exuberance of an overheated imagination, passed
beyond drawing altogether and exercised himself in the flour-
ishes of calligraphy. A bold and rapid pen-sketch of his,t
representing three reclining figures, is distinctly executed with
the dashing curves and flourishes of the calligraphist. It
looks as if it had been done by some clever writing-master,

• Reproduced in VArt^ vol. zviii.
t VArt, vol. iii. p. 117.

86 The Graphic Arts.

as a flourishing translation of a study by a learned artist.
Michael Angelo, in this design, appears to have been intoxi-
cated with his own facility and to have lost the self-control
without which there can be no truthful modulation of line.
The lines here are not studied, any of them, but dashed in
like the curves of capital letters. A much finer and better
example of Michael Angelo's work with the pen is the pa^
of studies of hands, three of them, larger than life, with a
man's back in the upper left-hand comer. The original is at
Oxford ; but it has been autotyped by Braun, and is quite a
first-rate example of bold but sober*work. The hands are
modelled with great power, showing both the bony and mus-
cular structure and the tension of skin between the fingers
which are separated as they grasp some object, the wrist
being high and bent. The well-known * Satyr's Head,' in
profile, in the Louvre, which was drawn by Michael Angelo in
ink, upon a drawing of a female head in sanguine, and which
is supposed to have been done when Michael Angelo was a
young man, is a strong and careful piece of modelling in
hatched pen-work after the manner of some powerful piece
of engraving, plainly showing that the artist could do sober
work when in the humour, and that the calligraphic flourishes
in some of his- rapid sketches were the result of a temporary
excitement which carried him outside of, and beyond, the
proper sphere of drawing. One of the finest of the very
slight ink sketchesMs that of the recliniirg figure of Day, but
it was done in such a hurry that the face is obliterated in
scribble, and one foot is half as long again as the other.*

The pen-drawings of Raphael are delightful for their easy
grace, and for the sure judgment with which the artist stopped
short at those limits that a wise painter seldom transgresses
when he draw^ with pen and ink. He left many drawings
with the pen, chiefly sketches of projects and intentions, so
that the subjects are often fully composed and we get those

• A reproduction appeared in VArt^ vol. iii. p. 83.

Pen and Ink- 87

improvements upon the natural lines which Raphael's exqui-
site taste suggested. Other drawings are more matter-of-fact
studies in which, of course, there is much less grace of line
than there is in his ideas for pictures. To my taste, the best
of Raphael's pen-drawings are the most entirely satisfactory
expressions of his genius. I like them better than his paint-
ings, for reasons which shall be given when we come to the
greater art, and they have a charm of freshness, of genius ac-
tually at work before us, thinking and realising its thoughts
at the same time, which is not to be found in any of the elab-
orate engravings from his finished designs. Popular admira-
tion often confounds one quality with another, and so because
Raphael had such a gift of graceful drawing as hjld never
been seen before in Europe, he has been called the Prince of
Painters ; which is a great mistake — as great a mistake as if
you were to credit a man with eminent Greek scholarship on
the strength of his elegant Latin.

Raphael, as a draughtsman with the pen, avoided (probably
without ever thinking about it) the defects of Michael Angelo.
There is great freedom in many of his designs, but you will
never find in them a single instance of wild flourishes due to
over-excitement Always master of himself, he lived with his
own ideas of grace and beauty, which may often have pressed
upon him somewhat urgently for at least a partial realisation,
but which never made him forget that he was drawing. No
man ever sketched more slightly when in a hurry, but th6
haste is indicated by extreme economy of labour, and not by
lines run wild. There is the lovely sketch for the Virgin with
the bullfinch, at Oxford,* so rapid that there is no outline for
the forehead of the infant Jesus, and we see the Virgin's right
arm through the other child's head, as if it were glass ; yet the
lines of the two principal figures are drawn with moderation,
and although the shading is very summary, consisting of strong

* Reproduced as an illustration in the Life of Raphael^ by Eugene
Monti.

88 The Graphic Arts.

diagonal strokes with wide spaces between them, it is carefully
placed, so as to give the infant Jesus the calculated degree of
relief, and the effect of it, taken together, is moderate. This
moderation in shading is characteristic of Raphael. In cer-
tain places he would put a thick line, or a blot, to give strong
accent or relief, but his shading is usually a middle-tint got
with diagonal lines. All the elements of Raphael's pen-drawing
will be found, on analysis, to reduce themselves to these four.

1. Pure line, indicating forms of persons, folds of drapery,
&c. This line is not hard outline, but is often broken and
picturesque, and deals with material within the outline; it
is often multiple, so that the eye has three or four lines to
choose from, in consequence of experiments and alterations.
It is not generally thick, though it seems so when near lines
run into each other.

2. Shading over the line, mostly diagonal, but not invariably.
This shading is generally open, the lines being sometimes an
eighth of an inch apart, but it is used only as a middle tint,
all lighter tints being left white.

3. Cross-hatching, seldom resorted to, and used only acci-
dentally, as it were, in parts, never laboriously, as if to imitate
an engraving.

4. Thickened lines in places. The use of these is to give
vigorous accents of relief. They have nothing to do with chia-
roscuro, and are only used to detach features, members, or
other objects. A nose, for instance, will sometimes be out-
lined with a very thick line, to make it very clearly visible, in
which case the thick line becomes a dark background on which
the nose relieves itself as a white object. In a study for the
* Entombment,' in M. Gay's collection, the shoulders of the
kneeling female figure are outlined with strokes as thick as a
large capital letter of this type. This has nothing to do with
nature, it is simply a device for detaching objects without full
light-and-shade. It is extensively resorted to at the present
day in wood-engraving.

Pen and Ink, 89

The greatest of the Venetian pen-draughtsmen was Titian,
whose remarkable power with this instrument will be better
appreciated if the reader will take the trouble to look at earlier
work of the same school, such as that of Gentile Bellini, of
which there are some examples in the British Museum. The
advance from G. Bellini to Titian is even greater than that
from Mantegna to Raphael, for Mantegna had great breadth
and decision in a simple style, though his work was primitive
in comparison with the mature work of Raphael, whereas G.
Bellini was delicate and even timid in manner, working out
his drawing in minute pen-touches, and giving details with
extreme care.* The advance from work of that class to the
masculine line of Titian is like the progress from hesitating
infancy to the most robust maturity.

The general characteristics of Titian's pen-drawing are
these : — He seems to have considered the pen simply as an
instrument for explaining the nature of tangible things, such
as figures, trees, stones, ships, &c., and he did nqt use it even
for the suggestion of colour, mystery, and effect. There is no
local colour in his pen-drawings : an object dark in itself is of
the same colour as a light object I need hardly observe that
this is not due either to ignorance or forgetfulness ; certainly
it cannot have been due to ignorance, for hundreds of pictures
give their testimony that Titian was even more alive than most
artists are to the value of local colour in the lights and darks
of a picture. Other artists very frequently seek for variety of
light and dark in sunshine and shadow, but Titian contented
himself with diffuse light from the sky, and got the necessary
variety in depth almost exclusively by means of the weights
or values of local colour. As to possible forgetfulness this
might have occurred in a single drawing, but the pen-drawings

♦ As, for example, in the drawing in the British Museum of a warrior
in a high cap, seated, with a quiver on one side and a bow and sword on
the other. Above him, in the same mount, is a study of a woman, exe*
cuted on the same principles.

go The Graphic Arts,

of Titian are very numerous, and I believe they all ignore local
colour equally, which proves a settled determination to avoid
it in this kind of art. Again, his pen-drawings do not attempt
to give either the mystery or the texture of natural things, nor
do they represent the contrasts of light and shade which come
from illumination, consequently they miss several very valu-
able elements of what may be called the poetical impressions
that we receive from the external world. What they really do
give, and that with extraordinary force and clearness, is the
artist's knowledge of things in themselves, and his sense of
their mutual relations as elements in composition. They are
not so elegant and charming as the pen-drawings of Raphael ;
but taking the whole of the material that Titfan dealt with
together, his drawings show by far the more comprehensive
understanding of the visible world. Many readers will re-
member the noble pen-drawing of Peter Martyr, which has
been autotyped,* and in which we see, at its best, the painter's
firm and simple treatment both of figures and trees, but the
drawings in the Uffizj at Florence are less known, though
some of them have been autotyped by Braun. Three land-
scapes, with mountainous distances and fine trees in the fore-
grounds, are especially grand examples of the bold and learned
manner in which Titian dealt with natural material of a very
high order. In one of these landscapes there is a crowded
group of trees to the left on rocky ground, occupying half the
picture, and the eye looks down from an eminence into a val-
ley, out of which it ascends again over land diversified by
minor hills and clumps of noble trees, until it comes to a dis-
tance of lofty crests, peak behind peak, * far, far away.' This
drawing is quite enough to prove that although Titian's system
of pen-work did not admit delicate tones, which are very valu-
able and useful in landscape, he could give a great deal of

• It is included in a volume of autotypes from drawings in the British
Museum, published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, with text by Mr.
Comyns Carr.

Pen and Ink. 91

landscape character without them. Properly speaking, there
is no chiaroscuro in this drawing. There is some shading,
but it is simply explanatory of form, ot the roundness of tree-
trunks, or the ruggedness of the mountain ground. Nothing
can exceed the simplicity of the means used — a plain pen-line
everywhere, never very delicate, even in the oudines of the
distant mountains, and never thick or blotted as in Raphael
and Michael Angelo, or in the modern work of which we shall
have to speak presently. If you do not enjoy the drawing^ if
you do not take delight in Titian's understanding of earth, and
stones, and trees, the work will seem grey and dull to you, for
it has no glamour of sparkle and gloom ; but it is the kind of
work in which landscape-painting of the most brilliant descrip-
tion may lay its firmest and most secure foundation. Here we
have not the glory of landscape, not its splendours nor its
mysteries, not its soft seductive beauty that fills the heart of
man with a sweet sadness and inspires his imagination with
dreams of a lost Paradise, but the positive tangible landscape
of earth, and stone, and wood, drawn with the same grasp of
matter that enables a figure-painter to deal with the bones and
muscles of which our limbs are built. This realism, or, to use
a still more accurate word, this materialism, of Titian's mind,
made the pen an acceptable instrument for him. It is an
excellent instrument for plain statements of material facts,
the bard and clear ink line records them rigorously and pre-
serves them permanently, but it is not the instrument where-
with to express the tender reveries of a weary heart or the
vague longings of a wandering imagination.

All hard and definite things, such as buildings and the
trunks of trees, may be very well rendered with pen-lines.
Titian often put buildings in the middle distances of his pen-
drawings, and he had, notwithstanding the general largeness
of his conceptions, rather a lively sense of the picturesque.
His little mountain towns, with their variety of roofs and
towers, and his villages with their homesteads, are delightful

92 The Graphic Arts,

for the loving care with which he attended to interesting
details of construction, such as the placing of windows and
arches, but, unluckily, in consequence of some obliquity of
vision, he never could draw vertical lines, always malting them
lean far to the right, sometimes even with a radiating sort of
arrangement like the pieces on the right-hand side of a fan.
In the Dresden Museum there is a noble drawing of a seaport
on an island with rugged mountains beyond a strait, and a
cliff crowned with a tower to the spectator's right, but, of
course, all the walls are leaning in a way that threatens ruin.
This drawing is specially interesting for its simple treatment
of clouds and water, the movement of both being indicated
with a few well-chosen lines, drawn just as firmly as those of
the land or buildings. It not unfrequently happens that in
the foregrounds of Titian's pen-drawings there is a good deal
of what may be called unmeaning shading in long bold lines
which efface the delicate beauty of natural vegetation, and are
of use only as ver}' broad indications of the modelling of the
earth-masses ; but whatever faults may be pointed out in
these works they are always noble in style and most happily
combine great breadth and energy of treatment with a vigilant
attention to characteristic facts of form.*

Giorgione employed the pen in a manner which reminds us
of Titian, but he used blacks more boldly, and he admitted a
system of broken dotted lines as a suggestion of the texture
of rocks which we do not find in Titian. His drawings of the
figure are simple and lively, with light, easy shading, not too
much insisted upon, and points of deep black which give
accent and vivacity.

Claude left many pen-drawings, of which by far the greater
number are more or less sustained by washes of bistre, or

* If the reader is seriously interested in studies of this kind he would
do well to procure for himself Braun*s Autotypes from the Uffizj, marked
813, 814, 815, and 816, in Braun's general catalogue, and also the draw-
ing from the Dresden Museum marked 63.

Pen and Ink. 93

some other water-colour monochrome. Some, however, are in
pure pen-work, and these may be taken as the beginning of
modern landscape sketching with the pen, which difiEers from
the massive draughtsmanship of Titian in a greater lightness
of style with less insistence upon facts of substance. Claude's
drawing of material things was always comparatively slight,
even when he was most energetic ; but this slightness was
amply compensated for by a new and exquisite sense of land-
scape effect and composition. We are not to look to his pure
pen-drawings for effect, they are merely rough sketches of
possible subjects, yet they show the landscape-painter in the
choice and arrangement of material. Some of them are ap-
parently coarse in manner to a degree which may at first sur-
prise students who are familiar with Claude's delicate skies
and distances in oil-painting, but it very frequently happens
that the most refined painters used the pen with the least
seeking after delicacy of line. I do not, however, think that
Claude generally drew powerfully enough to make his pen-
drawings very valuable in themselves ; they require to be sus-
tained by. washes, when the chiaroscuro so added makes them
more interesting.

The northern schools used the pen quite as vigorously as
the Italian. Albert Diirer's wonderful manual skill with the
burin, a much more difficult instrument than the pen, made
him quite at ease in his drawings, and there is a sense of
freedom in them showing itself in a facility of manner which,
though not comparable to the light grace of Raphael, is still
an evidence that the artist felt himself at play. Diirer's pen-
drawings show the artist's mind in its hours, not of idleness,
but of artistic relaxation, when he felt himself relieved for a
while from the stress and strain of the mechanical perfection
that engraving demanded, and could realise his ideas, to a
certain extent at least, without any pain or effort. His sys-
tem of shading was simple, and divided the subject into light
and darker masses without reference to local colour, and with

94 The Graphic Arts,

no intentional display of craft in cross-hatching or in varied
thickness of line.*

The pen is too valuable an instrument ever to have been
completely abandoned by artists, but it has been employed
by them more or less according to those delicate elective
affinities which exist between tools and workmen. Any one
who knows Rembrandt's etchings would be aware before-
hand that pen-drawing must have suited him. He left many
sketches with the pen, remarkably free in manner, and an-
swering rather to the croquis amongst his etchings than to
his more elaborate performances on copper. There is an
essential difference between the massive drawing of Titian
and Rembrandt's summary sketching. Rembrandt did not
use the pen for the elaboration of forms, but simply to in-
dicate them, just as in the most rapid writing it is enough
if the words are recognisable provided they are in their right
places. The omissions in such hasty sketching are often
rather surprising. Rembrandt would omit important features
when in a hurry. In a sketch for the * Anatomical Lesson,'
a student is seen full-face, but though the artist has provided
him with a sort of nose and eyebrows, he has not thought it
necessary to give him any mouth — an omission of no con-
sequence in a sketch for composition. The real interest of
these sketches is the artist's amazing strength of expression
with the slightest means. In a sketch of the * Entombment,*
which belonged to the painter Diaz, the dead body looks
more truly like death than it does in many an elaborate pic-
ture ; there is death in the open mouth, in the falling back of
the head, in the unrestrained rising of the shoulder from the
way the bearer carries it, and even in the very contraction of
the toes. There is a sorrowful expression in the faces and
attitudes of the living, though the whole composition does
not contain ten minutes' work. Here is the virtue and excel-

* See the drawing of * A Holy Family,' by Albert DUrer, in the collec-
tion of the Due d'Aumale, reproduced in VArt, vol. xix. p. 99.

Pen and Ink. 95

lence of such rapid sketching as this — of the true croquis —
to give composition and expression. As to form, all that can
be done in the time is to keep good proportions in length and
thickness of limb and size of head, minute truth of form can-
not be given, and is not to be expected. In the sketch just
mentioned the back of the nearest figure is barred with thick
diagonal lines, wide apart ; these are Rembrandt's rough note
of an intended weight or value of shade. * I mean this fellow
to have a dark garment reaching below the knee.' It is an
intention and not a representation.

Only to mention the names of all the artists who have
sketched or drawn with the pen would be to write a catalogue
instead of a chapter, so we must restrict ourselves to a few
characteristic examples of different varieties in method.

A very systematic kind of pen-drawing was applied to land-
scape in the earlier part of the nineteenth century by two
Frenchmen — Aligny and Edouard Bertin. Their drawings,
especially those of Aligny, are still valued, and may be found
occasionally in French collections. I mention them here be-
cause, although Aligny was not a great master, it is evident
that he had thought much about the proper way of interpret-
ing nature with the pen, and that his reflections led him to a
set method which combined a good deal of natural truth with
tasteful choice and arrangement. He travelled much, and
made pen-drawings of scenery and buildings full of very clear
statements of fact, and often conveying very effectively the
idea of sunlight, but prudently avoiding local colour and any-
thing like full chiaroscuro. His drawings were hard and
dry, yet they express a clear-cut artificial world, which bears a
definite artistic relation to the half-seen, mysterious natural
world, just as the sharp and brilliant writing of a clever
French prosateur has some sort of relation to the unfathom-
able sea of universal truth.* So it is with the pen-drawings

• There are some good examples of Aligny 's work in the Museum at
Aatan; and one in the Luxembourg, * A View of Corinth, with Rvivvvs-axA
Mountains/ was published in VArt, vol. xii. p. 267.

96 The Graphic Arts.

of Edouard Bertin. They are nature simplified and made
clear. Mountains are cut into simple masses, and the
branches of trees are laden with masses of a different charac-
ter, sometimes light and sometimes dark, which have some of
the qualities of foliage. The scheme of interpretation was
successful as far as it went, but it had the defect of suggest-
ing nothing that it could not positively explain. The pen-
sketching of Rembrandt, on the other hand, is not very ex-
planatory, but every scratch in it is interesting because it
suggests far more than it communicates.

There are, in fact, two distinct and opposite ways in which
the draughtsman with the pen may deal with the truths that
he cannot closely imitate, either from want of time, or from
the narrow limits of his art. He may wholly and absolutely
omit them, doing clearly without them as the writer of a book
omits and does without a quotation which he can neither copy
nor remember. This was Aligny's method — the method of
abstraction ; but there is also another method, that of Rem-
brandt, which gives hints and suggestions far beyond its
power of realisation. There cannot be a doubt that the sug-
gestive kinds of pen-drawing are by far the more valuable of
the two ; for however careful and elaborate the clear kind of
work may be, it is soon exhausted, and its very clearness is in
itself a falsity, whereas su^estive work is always rewarding
us by discoveries of partly expressed intentions, and the mys-
tery of it, whether strictly true or not, is at least some sort of
an equivalent for the endless mystery of nature.

It is time now, as we approach the modem schools, that we
should examine one of the most important elements in modem
pen-drawing, the black blot.

Every reader who is at all familiar with the analysis of works
of art must be aware already that in most drawings a great
number of light shades are lost in pure white paper. I may
call his attention to the fact, which he knows quite well al-
ready, that pure white paper is absolutely ^Z, that there is no

Pen and Ink.

97

giMamnTn it whatever. We see, then, that in tolerating flat
while in a drawing, we tolerate the merging of many shades
in one, which stands for them generally, as the word ' aristoc-
racy' stands for ail the higher classes, and besides this we
tolerate an untruth, the absence oE gradation, which is con-
trary to the habit of nature. There can be no valid reason
why exactly the same thing should not be done at the other
end of the scale. We have flat whites in abundance ; why not
admit flat blacks ?

The artistic effect of flat blacks may be seen in many of the
best wood-engravings, and also in immense numbers of Ori-
ental drawings; but the Chinese and Japanese draughtsmen,
who use flat blacks in any large spaces, fill them up with the
brush charged wich Indian ink, and we are at present consid-
ering pure pen-work only. Now, as a matter of harmony in
style, I think that all blacks introduced in a pen-drawing ought
to have clearly the appearance of having been done easily with
the pen itself, and that on!y. With this restriction, there can
be no reasonable objection to their use. All that the artist
means by them is that at those places the darks of nature
went down below a certain level. The holes and corners of
picturesque buildings are darker than Indian ink with the
light upon it, and so are the shady sides of all dark draperies ;
other darks come nearly up to Indian ink, others (greys and
browns in nature) are just equivalent to it. The flat black
represents all these together quite as fairly and legitimately
as the flat white represents luminous greys and greens.

There may, however, be a vicious excess in the use of the
black blot, and this is always reached when, for the mere
sake of making the drawing look brilHant, the artist represents
tones in absolute black which in nature are positively lighter.
Daumier, the famous French caricaturist, was so fond of black
that he freely used it to represent shadows which ought to
have been translated by grey ; and although nobody expects
aturist to be very delicate in the choice of technical

I Have been
^^^^tericatu

98 The Graphic Arts,

means, the manifest technical inferiority of Daumier to George
Du Maurier is due in great measure to the fact that Daumier
used flat blacks immoderately and out of their right places,
whilst Du Maurier puts them just where they ought to be
with reference to local colour and light and shade. Charlet,
a French draughtsman of military subjects, who won a great
reputation between 1820 and 1845, and who used the pen
with a full knowledge of its value as an artistic instrument,
employed the black blot very frequently indeed ; I mean that
you might count thirty or forty such blots in the same draw-
ing, but none of them were very broad, and to prevent them
from being too heavy, he would run a bit of pure white into
them, such as a blade or two of grass, a few sprays and leaves
in landscape, or in military accoutrements such little things as
a button, a piece of braid, or the trigger-guard of a musket.

Fortuny, the Spanish painter, introduced a new kind of pen-
drawing, which has been followed by Casanova and others of
the same school, and which has had some influence outside
of it as well as upon the practice of etching. The line, in the
pen-work of the old masters, had generally been rather long,
and in some instances both long and strong at the same time.
Fortuny tried the effect of short broken lines probably because
he perceived that he seldom saw in nature anything that could
be fairly interpreted by a long line. It is certain that the long,
clear, sharp lines of Aligny are always false, from over-defini-
tion, along a great part of their course. In nature we see a
contour clearly for a little way, then it becomes obscure or
difficult to follow, and then we recover it again, changes in
the degree of visibility which are better represented by a
broken line than by one that is equally continuous. But, be-
sides this, there is another element of falsity in what are con-
sidered pure and classic lines. They may be beautiful in
themselves, but to make them what is called *pure,' they have
to be simplified, that is to say, the small irregularities have to
be cut away, and this is a sacrifice of many minute truths, and

Pen and Ink, 99

of the great truth that there are such irregularities. A refer-
ence to geography may illustrate my meaning clearly. A map
of England with a purified and simplified outline might be
beautiful, but it would be so at the cost of a multitude of
omissions, since every league of coast has its own variety of
projection and indentation. A map of England made by
a carefully observant surveyor could never have a bold and
simple outline. So it is with the drawings of artists ; what is
called chaste and classic simplicity, is an abstraction obtained
at a great sacrifice. Fortuny sought the opposite quality of
variety. Again, it was a result of this taste that he used
thin lines. His lines were black, but they were thin, because
the pen that made a thick line could never have been nimble
enough to follow the ins and outs of a varied natural outline.
He could bring his thin lines near together and get a dark
shade, or he could bring them quite close and make an inten-
tional blot, which he often did with very great judgment \ but
as he found that, with his system of execution, the thin line
could be made to express every degree of dark, he did not
feel obliged to abandon it. Michael Angelo and Rembrandt
both worked on a different system — with them the thick line
was an important means of expression, whilst in Raphael it
is an artifice for definition.*

Pen-drawing of various kinds has been followed vigorously
in France even in the past generation. Painters like Eugene
Delacroix, G^ricault, Theodore Rousseau, and Paul Huet,
drew very effectively with the pen. Huet was as systematic
as Aligny, but not so formal ; he used a strong picturesque
line and a large black blot. Rousseau drew with an almost
child-like absence of pretension, in fragmentary touches,

♦ The reader may find some pen-sketches by Fortuny in the artistic
periodicals. There are in VArt — ist, A sketch of a valet, seated on a
stool, with a stick in his hand (vol. i. p. 372) ; 2nd, A portrait of Jose
Tapiro (vol. ii. p. 66) ; 3rd, A sketch of a warrior with his shield (vol. ii.
p. 68). The first is an engraving on wood, but it preserves most of the
qualities of Fortuny's work.

lOO The Graphic Arts.

which look Very unlearned yet preserve the spirit of the
scene. G^ricault drew with the fire and energy of a man
of genius \ he had, however, a mannerism sometimes found
amongst the draughtsmen of his time, which consisted in
putting a dot at the end of a stroke when nothing in nature
called for it. This vice did not infect his boldest work, which
is almost equal to Rembrandt in strength of conception and
simplicity of purpose. The * Lion holding a Serpent,' a rude
sketch by G^ricault in thick lines, bears a striking resem-
blance to Rembrandt's most energetic sketching, though, of
course, G6ricault thought only of his subject. Delacroix
used the pen chiefly for experimental sketches, which are
interesting and have a close affinity with his handwriting, in
which he used large letters and thick strokes. Some pen-
sketches by Delacroix remind one of Michael Angelo in their
manner. Both artists employed the thickening line which
begins with a point, like a blade of grass, and thickens
towards the middle. It is one of the advantages of the pen
over the etching-needle to be able to give lines of this de-
scription, which are a help at least so far as this, that they
express elasticity and energy in the artist.*

I have not had space in this chapter to mention a tithe of
the famous artists who have employed pen and ink in draw-
ing, but I invite the reader's attention to one point which is
likely to be forgotten as time goes on. He must remember
that no master who worked before the second half of the
nineteenth century had any reason for choosing the pen
except that he liked it, that he valued its artistic capabilities.
If an old master, such as Titian, loved the pen, it was not
for any external reason ; but the invention of photography
and of the various kinds of photographic printing and en-
graving has in this second half of the nineteenth century

♦ A very good instance of this is the two arms sketched after the post-
script in a letter from Delacroix to Alexander Dumas, given in the pub-
lished correspondence of the painter.

Pett and Ink.

lor

^^black

^ren a very powerful external reason for studying pen-drawingi
and enormously enhanced the commercial importance of the
art. It so happens that nothing we can draw reproduces
quite so perfectly as a clear black-ink line on perfectly smooth
white paper, and in consequence of this the art of drawing
with the pen has suddenly become the principal means of diS'
seminating artistic ideas when economy is an object. Pen-
sketches by artists from their own pictures are reproduced
and printed with catalogues, or in the pages of art-magazines,
which by this means are able to give autographs more expres-
sive of the artist's mind, however roughly executed, than a
forma) engraving by another hand. One very great educa-
tional advantage of the photographic processes is that the
public, which formerly looked upon real sketches with in-
difference or contempt, as ill-drawn or unfinished things,
unworthy of its attention, is now much belter able to under-
stand the short-hand of drawing, and consequently is belter
prepared to set a just value on the pen-sketches of the great
masters.

The immense quantities of pen-drawings which will be
produced in the future with a view to some kind of photo-
graphic engraving (especially for printing with type) will form,
as it were, an infinite ocean of production, in the midst of
which the works of our contemporaries will be scarcely more
distinguishable than the waves of the Atlantic. Their only
chance of relative immortality is a reputation won in some
other department of art. Sir John Gilbert will be remem-
bered as a famous artist in many ways ; so, perhaps, posterity
will not forget that hi^ pen-work was strong and originaL
Such sketching as the lively croquis done by him in r875,
from his own picture of ' Don Quixote and Sancho before
the Duchess,' is as perfect as anything can be in that manner.
The elements of it are the thin line, the thick line, and the
black blot, all used with the utmost lightness of hand and
I, and conveying not only movement and expresaitm.

I02 The Graphic Arts,

but something of local colour, in hair and dress, at the same
time. White, black, and two greys, are the simple elements
with which the local colour of the painting is suggested. Mr.
Marks draws with intentional simplicity of line, and grey
straight shading in the style of an old engraving. There is
no play of hand in his manner, as in that of Sir John Gilbert,
he draws soberly like the old draughtsmen on wood, with
hardly any blotting, and as little cross-hatching as possible
— a perfectly sound' style, but not a very lively one. One
of the best styles in pen -drawing practised by contemporary
painters is that of Mr. G. H. Bough ton. It is not hard, nor
minute, and it does not appear laborious, and yet it takes
account of lights and darks, and, to a sufficient degree, of the
nature of materials. It entirely avoids the too great clear-
ness and precision which we noticed in the systematic work
of Aligny and Bertin. Mr. Boughton suggests much more
than he fully expresses, and varies his means of interpreta-
tion as occasion requires, employing thin lines or thick ones,
broken lines or continuous ones, dashes, dots, blots, just as
it suits him. Such drawings as those from his pictures of
* The Rivals,' and * A Ruffling Breeze,' show quite a strong
and decided natural gift for pen-drawing in the modern
spirit. Mr. Cecil Lawson's pen-drawings err in the opposite
direction to those of Aligny. The French artist had no
mystery, the Englishman has too much, so that his drawing
passes into confusion. The French artist substituted for the
infinite tones of nature a few distinct tones of his own, four
or five of them, that you can count ; the English landscape-
painter attempts the whole scale of natural tone with the pen,
and the method betrays him. Aligny stuck to the line as
a man overboard clings to a thrown rope ; in Mr. Lawson's
work the line is so completely abolished that it seems as if
the artist had never discovered anything like linear beauty in
nature. In short, Mr. Lawson pens landscape as if he were
painting, and the slightest deterioration in the reproduction

Pen and Ink, 103

of his drawings is fatal to them. They ought to be repro-
duced by the most perfect photographic intaglio engraving,
and not by the typographic processes.

Whenever there is strong individuahty in a style, it is sure
to deserve attention in spite of serious defects ; for individ-
uality cannot exist without power, and there cannot be power
without a combination of knowledge and passion. Ribot, the
French painter, draws with the pen in a manner of his own,
making great use of dots and spots wherever he can find a
pretext for them, and broadly separating light spaces from
dark spaces. He avoids straight parallel lines, in which his
manner is directly opposed to early wood-engraving ; his lines
are generally short, more or less curved, and very much varied
in direction. The number of dots makes a pen-drawing by
him look like a pitted etching, overbitten, except that all the
dots help the drawing and expression of the figures. De
Neuville, the famous military painter, is one of the most per-
fectly accomplished pen-draughtsmen who have ever prac-
tised the art. In his work *A Coups de Fusil,' a set of
sketches of war subjects in 1870, he shows the qualities of
the best and most natural modern manner, which looks as
easy as handwriting, seems to go by no methodical rule of
any kind, and yet cautiously avoids all the pitfalls which lie
in wait for the unwary, whilst it is intensely observant in
reality, though without any strain of attention. For example,
in one of the sketches an old lady is burying her silver-plate
on the approach of the enemy. It looks very slight, and the
detail is quite unobtrusive, but when you come to look into it,
you can quite easily make out the design of the coffee-pot and
soup- tureen and cruet-stand down to the exact shape of the
stoppers, with the lights and reflections on the silver and
glass. So we know all about the poor old lady's dress, her
black silk gown, and her white cap with the dark ribbons in
it. In the sketches of cavalry there is not a strap or a buckle
out of place, yet none of them are drawn more than the^

104 ^^^ Graphic Arts.

should be, and they never obtrude themselves on our notice.
They are like words used correctly in easy speech, where
there is not a trace of pedantry. The same knowledge,
without insistence, may be observed in M. de Neuville's man-
agement of lights and darks. He recognises light and shade,
and he recognises local colour also, but he never over-
labours his work for the sake of either. You can see at once
that the village mayor wears a dark coat and light trousers,
that one side of a house is in light and the other in shadow,
yet the drawing seems as little encumbered by pen-shading,
as if there were none of it. It would be hard to find a set of
drawings which conveyed so much truth and made so little
fuss about it.

It sometimes happens that there are great virtues in the
work of amateurs which are prevented from receiving due
recognition because the amateur is not a master of form.
The pen-sketches of Hood, the poet and humourist, were ad-
mirably sound in manner, far sounder and better than many
laboured attempts by accomplished painters ; and yet, as it
was evident that Hood's knowledge of form was quite un-
scientific, it was thought that his sketches had no higher
quality than that of making people laugh. Not only was his
line very expressive, but his management of the means at his
command in lights and darks was always exceedingly judi-
cious. For example, in the scene where four expectant ne-
groes are roasting a white man, he uses positive black on the
negroes with the most artistic reserve, it is kept for the two
nearest, and only used, even on them, for the deepest shades ;
the receding distances of the others are expressed by three
shades of grey ; finally, the white man, who is suspended
over the fire, is drawn in very thin outline without any shad-
ing whatever, that we may clearly perceive his whiteness.
Rembrandt himself could not have arranged the subject bet-
ter. Another amateur, much more accomplished than Hood,
M. Jules Buisson, who was a deputy at the National Assem-

Pen and Ink. 105

bly at Versailles, conceived the idea of making an historical
portrait gallery of his colleagues under the happy title, * Le
Mus^e des Souverains.' It was a collection of pen-sketches,
which are sure of immortality for their great political inter-
est, and which richly deserve it for their artistic qualities quite
independently of politics. M. Buisson's principle of caricature
is the same as that of Lionardo da Vinci, the exaggeration of
ugly or ridiculous features, but he is more moderate than
Lionardo was, and therefore more to be dreaded by his vic-
tims, for he is crafty enough to leave us frequently in doubt
as to the possible degree of natural ugliness in the living
legislators. Had they really such features — those fathers of
the constitution of 1875? We hardly know; we think they
may possibly have been like that. The caricatures are not
obviously very wide deviations from nature, and the lolling,
ungraceful attitudes seem to be truth itself. These are the
notables of Philistia, in whom there is no sweetness, and for
whom, if any light shineth, it is feeble and remote like the
sunshine on Uranus.

M. Buisson's collection of portraits exhibits pen-drawing in
its most distinct varieties. We have the dashing sketch in
few and strong lines, the quiet sketch in sober thin lines with
just a suggestion of light and shade, and the carefully mod-
elled drawing in innumerable lines. The more dreadful the
caricature the more elaborate the artistic performance. Every
abnomal bump on a cranium, every protuberant padding of
fat on cheek or neck, is modelled as if it had been a beauty.
It b easy to see that the artist had a grim enjoyment of his
own skill, for in his finished drawings he carefully gives them
the local colour of hair and complexion, of coat and velvet
collar, or black neck- tie. Such work has technical as* well as
human interest, for it shows how much plain truth the pen
may be made to tell.

Before concluding this chapter I must clear away a possible
cause of confusion. When people see the woodcuts in Punck^

io6 The Graphic Arts.

by such artists as Leech and Geoi^ Du Maurier, they are
apt to think of their technical merits, if ever they happen to
think of them at all, as belonging to the art of engraving on
wood. Now wood-engraving has its own merits, to which full
justice shall be rendered in the right place, but we must say
plainly here, that in the cuts from Leech and Du Maurier,
wood-engraving is entirely a subordinate art, and that the
whole artistic merit of those cuts (which the engraver is for-
tunate if he does not diminish) is the merit of good, sound
pen-drawing. Again, because the contributors to Punch are
witty men who make us laugh, we are only too apt to over-
look the artistic qualities of their drawings ; so that it would
seem strange to many if I compared John Leech to the great
serious masters of the pen such as Raphael and Titian. Well,
we know, of course, the mental distinction between a gentle
satirist of modern life and an inventor of immortal beauty,
but in such matters as the judicious use of the ink-line in
shading John Leech is comparable to Raphael, or to any
artist who ever lived. If you study such admirable designs as
the * Hunting in the Holidays,' or the * " Oh, my goodness !
It's beginning to rain ! " a sketch on the Yorkshire coast,'
with the attention which they deserve, you will find that the
pen-line is made to convey a wonderful amount of truth, not
only about the forms of organic and inorganic things, but
about their local colour, texture, and substance. Leech's line
was always wonderfully explanatory. Light and airy in one
place, firm in another, sometimes clear and definite, some-
times intentionally confused, it described everything that
came in his way more accurately than the paragraphs of our
most laborious novelists, and with all his respect for various
kinds of truth his drawings were never encumbered. It is
an endless pleasure to follow the strokes of his pen, to see
how they express everything he chooses, and with what mod-
estly consummate science, the possession of a gentleman, not
the display of a performer. His well-dressed ladies, his

Peft and Ink. 107

fashionables, and middle-class people, his sleek horses, rough
Shetland ponies, donkeys, and Skye-terriers — all have their
precisely appropriate appearance, whilst even his landscape,
subordinate though it be, is fully suggestive of English nature
through all changes of season and weather.

With all its excellence, the pen-drawing of Leech had one
peculiarity, which made it pictorially less effective than it
might have been ; it was rather grey. Now we sometimes
find it assumed by critics that to be grey is a fault in a pen-
drawing or a woodcut, whilst a strong opposition of white
and black is a virtue. Such an assumption is quite unten-
able, and is founded on simple ignorance of what has been
done by the great nien ; for they made grey drawings, or
black and white drawings, just as the subject required or as
their own feeling suggested.* It was not in the slightest
degree a fault in Leech to draw in rather a grey manner \
but he might, if he had chosen, have made his drawings look
more effective by insisting more on blacks when he had an
opportunity for doing so, and by artfully bringing clear and
brilliant whites into opposition with them. Mr. George Du
Maurier has availed himself of these resources with a degree
of tact and skill which, in pen-drawing, is unprecedented. For
example, in his * Winter Walk * a number of school-girls are
passing in procession along a wooded lane. In the middle
distance their dresses tell in dark grey against the dark grey
trees, but in the foreground they tell in most vigorous blacks
against a large space of pure white snow. Small details of
dress, such as the white fur round a muff, are used to prevent
the black from being too heavy. So in the admirable scene
on a staircase, where a procession of ladies and gentlemen is
going down to dinner, the black costumes of the men are

* Amongst modern artists who make grey pen-drawings with intelli-
gence and skill I may mention Harpignies, the French landscape-painter
whose work with the pen is always elegant and perfectly harmonious, yet
conceived and executed from first to last in quiet greys.

lo8 The Graphic Arts.

used as foils to the bright dresses of the ladies ; and in the
ladies' dresses themselves, especially that in the most conspic-
uous position, white and black are opposed as vigorously as
possible. Such a drawing is not in full tone, or anything like
it ; there are many necessary and intentional omissions, very
light tones are translated by white, very dark ones are merged
in black; but the artist has so contrived his arrangements
as to get the effective oppositions which are an essential ele-
ment of his art Pray observe, too, that the effect of them is
not merely technical ; they have an influence on our minds.
The ideas of wealth, comfort, and civilisation, are certainly
more fully expressed in this manner than they could be in the
slighter manner of Doyle. A black coat or a velvet gown
can never look warm in outline.

I have not space to follow out the uses of the pen in archi-
tectural drawing, but the main distinctions may be marked in
a few words.

An architect may draw either to explain facts of construc-
tion, or to give truth of aspect. The two kinds of drawing
are opposite and incompatible. Facts of construction are
most clearly explained by a conventional system, well under-
stood by the best architectural draughtsmen, which entirely
eliminates mystery ; whilst truth of aspect includes mere sug-
gestion and intentionally doubtful and imperfect degrees of
definition. Viollet-le-Duc, the celebrated French architect,
was probably the most industrious and the most able exposi-
tor of definite objects by explanatory pen-drawing who ever
lived in Europe ; but he could not sketch the aspect of an old
building with half the artistic skill of Sir Digby Wyatt or Mr.
Ernest George. The real weakness of explanatory architec-
tural drawing is best shown when it happens to deal with nat-
ural objects, in which mystery and infinity are always present
Viollet-le-Duc could explain a building so that you should
thoroughly understand all about its stone-work, its carpentry,
and its iron-work; but though he bad a passionate love for

Pen and Ink. 109

mountains and was himself a bold climber, He never really
drew a mountain, but only reduced models of mountains, that
might have been blocked out in stone by any intelligent
mason. It would be very mistaken criticism to condemn the
explanatory drawing of architects because it is incompetent
to deal with nature : it is excellent for its own purposes, but
the clearness of it is due to its rejection of natural truth ; and
it bears the same relation to the drawing of great painters
that the squared logs in a carpenter's yard bear to a grove of
trees, with the sunshine on the intricacy of their branches and
the wind in their innumerable leaves.

Comparison of Pen-drawing with Nature, — The finest pen-
drawings by great masters bear a certain relation to nature,
but they are not nearly so imitative as the art has sometimes
become in very inferior hands.

To make pen-drawing imitative its lines would have to be
so delicate as not to be obtrusive. Distinctions of tone and
local colour would have to be cautiously preserved by using
ink of various degrees of dilution from pale grey to intense
black. All rough sketching would have to be avoided ; for as
Nature is delicate everywhere and full of minute beauties, as
natural things are always exquisitely finished, every strong
stroke of the pen is a refusal to consider this minute natural
beauty and finish, and is, with reference to Nature, as barbar-
ous as the course of a plough through a bank of wild flowers,
or the rolling of a cart-wheel over a procession of ants. Nev-
ertheless, the boldly interpretative use of the pen which the
great masters approved and practised is still, in a high intel-
lectual sense, respectful towards Nature. It omits her minute
beauties, her delicate finish ; but it observes the great truths
of structure, growth, tendency, and sets them forth with very
powerful emphasis. It suggests light and shade, sometimes
it goes farther and suggests local colour also, but it imitates
neither. The hardness and definition of the black-iuk Ivwfc

I lo The Graphic Arts.

are clearly a contradiction to the morbidezza of natural beauty;
but intellectual art does not object to these technical depart-
ures from Nature, it acknowledges them and passes on —
passes on to the expression of knowledge, to the construction
of compositions. The great merit of the pen-line with refer-
ence to Nature is a freedom which permits it to follow easily
the sinuosities of natural things. Imitation might be carried
farther by its means than it generally has been in the works
of the great masters, but it would require a foolish expendi-
ture of time. One of the educational advantages to be de-
rived from the study of pen-drawings by great men is that
they so soon teach us the distinction between pure Nature
and the expression of the human spirit.

Auxiliary Washes. iii

CHAPTER XL

AUXILIARY WASHES.

THE essential difference between auxiliary washes and inde-
pendent work in water-colour is that such washes are only
used to help linear work by giving it a sustained surface of
shade; they are not of any great complexity in themselves;
if the lines which sustain them were removed they would not
present the appearance either of complete drawing or foil
modelling — they would look scarcely more than a beginning
— a placing of broad shades before the real work of develop-
ment and defoiition.

So strong is the mutual support of line and wash that the
combination of them is a great economy of time. The line
carries the wash and gives shape to it ; the wash bears out and
fills up the line-work, and gives it consistency by bringing its
scattered dements together.

The nature of this combination might be illustrated by many
analogies. It is a principle, both of natural and artificial con-
struction, diat a rigid framework of some strong material may
be advantageously employed to carry a more yielding material
spread out upon it.

A boy's kite, the spars and sails of a ship, the fins of a fish,
the wings of a bat, and many other things in natural products
and human contrivances are constructed on a principle analo-
gous to that of the line and the wash. In boat-building it is
found that thin boards will do if they are sustained by ribs ;
the thin silk of an umbrella is stretched on ribs of steel or
whalebone; and almost all cheap and light coIlt^\\^Iice.^ m

112 The Graphic Arts,

construction, from the booths at a fair to the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham, are built on the same principle.

In a boy's kite the form is given by the skeleton of wood
and string, which answers to linear drawing, but the area is
filled up by the paper which gives a surface with no holes in it,
light on dark, according to the tint selected, and the paper
answers to the wash of shade that a draughtsman throws over
his lines. The paper holds the wind, the wash in the drawing
holds the shade, and prevents it, as it were, firom falling through
the interstices of the linear work, like water through a'sieve.

The important point to be noted about auxiliary washes is
that, if only they are harmoniously carried out, and not de-
veloped imequally and inconsistentiy, the degree of development
in them as to modelling and Ught and shade, is of very little
consequence. I mean that the slightness of an auxiliary wash
is never, in itself, objectionable. There are many drawings in
great collections, highly and justiy valued, that are washed
lightiy. A good critic would never accuse an artist of indo-
lence or incapacity because he had not thought it necessary
to carry an auxiliary wash to any great development of pro-
jection, or to any great depth of shade.

There is an especial reason, in the nature of things, why
artists often shrink firom carrying an auxiliary wash far, and
that is, the extreme danger of overpowering the linear work
that lies under it. In a wash of sepia or Indian ink over lead-
pencil, for example, the grey of the lead will soon be overpow-
ered by the wash if it is not used in great moderation, and this
is no doubt the reason why we seldom find lead-pencil and wash
combined. In finished water-colours the lead-pencil lines of the
first sketch are intended to be overpowered by the brush-work,
and are so to such a degree that we scarcely detect them.
When they remain visible, and important, the brush-work is
always both light in tone and slight in texture.

Line and auxiliary washes are employed together in great
variety. They may be divided into two chief classes, line on

Atixiliary Washes, 113

wash, and wash on line. In the first method, the drawing is
all strictly made out first, and the wash conforms to it, but no
more ; in the second, the wash is laid first in shapes generally
predetermined by a faint line in pencil, and forms are brought
into stronger definition by lines upon the wash. The result
may be apparently the same in both cases, and yet the mind
, of the artist operates very differently in the two kinds of work.
When he draws the Ime first, he builds forms which are to carry
shade ; when he puts in the line last he brings out the form.
The first process is construction, the second is evolution. . The
first is more in conformity with mechanical processes, and is
more convenient; but the second, in which the forms grow^
and come firom a less to a greater degree of definition, is the
process the more favourable to artistic conception and inventive
thought.

The choice between one or the other of these processes is
often determined by no higher a consideration than simple tech-
nical convenience. If the substance used for the line is very
soluble in water, so that it can be easily disturbed, a wish will
carry it away (unless applied like a glaze, with extreme light-
ness and dexterity) , so that it becomes desirable to lay the line
upon the wash instead of under it ; but if the substance of the
line is insoluble, then the wash may be passed over it without
inconvenience. Indian ink, though it can be rubbed easily
with water to a state of wonderful diffusion, possesses the re-
markable property, when used on paper, of resisting a second
wash of itself, as if it were insoluble. On other substances,
such as porcelain, it does not possess this property. However,
as drawings are usually made on paper, a line may be drawn in
Indian ink, and then freely washed over with a thinner tint of the
same. Indelible brown ink is used in the same manner. It
resists admirably, but the objection to it for line with wash is,
that it is somewhat pale, and lacks body, at least in comparison
with sepia, bistre, and umber, so that it is easily overpowered,
and only bears light washes. This is a convenience ^wVvwi

8

114 The Graphic Arts.

colour is used, because then it is desirable that the line should
not be obtrusive, and its golden brown tint is less incompatible
with colour than black or even a stronger-bodied brown would
be. For its own special purposes, that is, with light washes or
with colour, indelible brown ink is most valuable.

The difficulty with most men who lay a wash over lines is to
know when to stop. It ought to be simply auxiliary, like an
accompaniment in music, for so soon as it usurps too much
importance the brilliancy of the line-work is sure to be hope-
lessly sacrificed. The white spaces between the lines may seem
to require sustenance and support, but if the shading applied
with the brush goes beyond this, if it becomes in any degree
an equivalent of the liije, then the line gets drowned in it in
the darker parts of the drawing, whilst it remains visible in the
lighter, so that the work is no longer homogeneous, because the
relations of line and shade are not the same in the different
parts of it. If the reader will study the drawing in line and
wash by Sir John Gilbert ^ this volume, he will soon perceive
how moderately the wash is used, and with what care it is kept
transparent, so as not to drown the line. Even in the photo-
gravure, which, of course, is somewhat inferior to the original
drawing in transparence, there is hardly a spot where the pen-
lines are really lost beneath the wash.

If this principle of moderation is faithfully observed, the
wash may be used over very delicate line-work indeed, such
as that of the hard pencil-point. It ought to carry the drawing
forward in the direction of light and shade, but it ought not
to attempt either complete light and shade or complete model-
ling, for that is properly the province of pure brush-work. In
any drawing which has utmost finish for its object, line-work,
unless so delicate that it cannot be easily seen with the naked
eye, is an intrusion and an impertinence. This is not the place
to go fully into this question, but I $hall show, when treating of
engraving, what an interference line ^iAirays is in the imitation
of nature. On the other hand, in work th^t is intentionally

Auxiliary Washes. 115

kept fer short of actual imitation, line is extremely useful, and
the more summary the expression of knowledge the more con-
venient the line becomes.

People whose knowledge of art is confined to pictures and
highly finished engravings are but little aware how easily the
great artists of past times contented themselves with very simple
means when recording .their ideas for their own use. Drawings,
idiich to the popular eye would appear both empty and igno-
rant, were executed dehberately by men of large experience
and deep knowledge, for the special purpose of setting down
artistic ideas or intentions. In the Uffizj, at Florence, there
are some drawings by Cambiaso, in pen and wash, in which the
deliberate simplification of nature is carried as far as it possibly
can be. Two of them, different ideas for a picture of Christ
arrested,* consist of nothing but a very few strong ink lines,
simplified even in their direction by many intentional omissions,
and washed with httle more than two flat tints of shade, di-
viding the picture (with the help of the white paper) into three
degrees of Hght and darkness. The result is two perfectly har-
monious and well-understood drawings, in which the action is
dramatically given, whilst the composition is quite clear, and
the light and shade fiiUy suggested. The scene in which tiie
soldiers are descending a road with trees, seems a riper and
better conception than the other project with the bridge, but
the execution is the same, and quite sufficient for the purpose
in both cases. Nicolas Poussin has left; many good examples
of pen-drawing with slight wash. I may mention two, a Bac-
chante in the Uffizj, f and a Holy Family in the Louvre.]:
Nothing could be more simple than the method followed in
these drawings, a rather broken pen outline, then very open
.shading, for the most part diagonal, but in some cases following

* Reproduced by Braun in autotype, and numbered 832 and 835 in his
catak>gae.

t Reproduced in the Braun autot3rpes, No. 949.
X No. 1254 in the Louvre Collection.

Ii6 The Graphic Arts,

the direction of perspective; finally, a series of flat washes,
not giving more than about three tones. There is no attempt
to render local colour, and all the lights are left white. In the
drawing of the Bacchante one of the figures is put in with a fiat
brush shade, without any outline — a thing often done with
distant mountains in sketches of landscape, because the hard-
ness of the line brings objects too near.

Giorgione used pen and wash for strong divisions of light
and dark. Two landscapes by him in the Uffizj are excellent
examples of that effective elementary division of a landscape
into light parts and dark parts, which in a more advanced stage
of the art, when distinctions are more subtle and delicate, we
are perhaps rather too much disposed to leave behind us and
forget. Natural scenery frequently offers these simple divisions,
especially under effects of a passing cloud, but in nature they
are connected by intermediate shades. The process of sim-
plification in such sketches as those of Giorgione consists in
the omission of these intermediaries. Simplification of that
kind is perfectly right and legitimate in sketches, and even to
some extent, though not to the same extent, in finished pictures ;
but it is desirable that we should understand it, and not mistake
it either for adequate representation of nature, or for an unsuc-
cessful attempt at imitation. In one of Giorgione *s sketches of
landscape * we have a dark distant hill, a dark foreground, and
a brilliantly lighted middle distance between them, which is
an effect very common in the Scotch Highlands; in another
sketch t of a bridge with two arches spanning a deep ravine,
with water at the bottom, and buildings with a tower on the
high ground to the left, there are bold distant hills beyond the
bridge, and one hill is in light whilst another is in shade. The
sky, again, is divided into a light space and a dark space,
whilst the precipitous sides of the ravine have their light half

* Braun's autotypes, Uffizj, 961.
t Ibid, 763.

Auxiliary Washes, 117

and their dark half. I look upon these drawings as nothing
more than experiments in elementary landscape chiaroscuro,
but they are very interesting, especially for the time when
they were done ; and it is certain that exercises of the same
kind, with the same simple means, would be of great use to
young landscape-painters at the present day, and even (as
reminders) to artists of experience.*

In Claude, the combination of pen and wash took the appear-
ance of more advanced art because in him the arrangement of a
landscape composition began to have the certainty of a science.
He often used opaque white, which is not easily harmonised with
monochrome washes in water-colour. There is a drawing in the
Louvre,t of the ' Rape of Europa,' which may serve as a warn-
ing in this respect. It is a pen-drawing in brown washed in
grey, and touched extensively with opaque grey, which is horribly
discordant and spoils the drawing. All artists should know and
remember, that though monochromes are not done for colour
they are still subject to its laws, and that foul or incompatible
tints offend the eye in what is called a monochrome as much as
they do in a picture. Another combination of Claude's is a
mistake in taste. Sometimes he drew his lines in bistre and
made his wash in Indian ink, J thus producing a discordance
between the two elements which might have been easily avoided
by using one pigment for both. All that can be said in favour
of these combinations is that the wash, being chromatically dif-
ferent from the line, may leave it more distinct ; but an equal

* Chardin used to insist upon the necessity for directing attention to
the broad divisions and oppositions of masses, because they are easily
lost sight of in the confusion of natural intricacy and glitter. Broad
washes in sepia, on a pen outline, in indelible ink, are the best means
to this end.

t Catalogue, 737.

X As, for example, in the drawing 741 in the Louvre.

It may be observed with reference to the same drawing, that the very
nearest columns are outlined in much darker ink than the others so as to
give something resembling the effect of a deeper biting in etchlrv^.

ii8 ^ The Graphic Arts.

distinctness might be readily attained by having the line stronger^
or the wash weaker, in proportion.

When Claude used pen and wash he sometimes left his dis-
tances outlined, and refrained from carrying any wash into them.
There are two ways of treating distances in such drawings :
either you may outline them and refrain from shading to avoid
heaviness, or else you may shade them only with the brush and
refrain from pen-work to avoid hardness and nearness. The
latter is the better plan for a drawing intended to be shown,
because the effect comes nearer to the softness and delicacy of
natural distances ; but if the drawing is intended only for the
artist's portfolio, he may prefer Claude's method for the more
precise indications of detail which it gives. As examples I may
mention the distant island in the ' Rape of Europa,' which is
simply outlined, and some distances in the ' Liber Veritatis.*

The washed drawings in the 'Liber Veritatis,* which were
done simply for themselves, and quite without reference to pos-
sible future interpretation by mezzotint and etching, were for a
long time the accepted models of landscape drawing in pen and
wash. In many respects they are very good models. The
pen-work is not so clever and brilliant as that of some modern
sketchers, but at any rate it is not ' mappy.* It \% comprehen-
sive, and properly sacrifices small deUcacies and beauties which,
though pleasing enough in themselves, tend to make both the
artist and his admirers forgetftd of large masses. With little
labour and a few strong lines of the pen, Claude set a tree or a
building on the paper, whilst a few broad washes sufficed to
make his intentions as to light and shade perfectly intelligible.
The drawings for Turner's * Liber Studiorum * are shaded more
elaborately, there is more modelling in them, more projection ;
those of Claude are flat in comparison, but Turner's drawings
were intended for the mezzotint engraver, so that the compari-
son is not quite fair. There is a study of a tree by Claude in
the Louvre* which is bolder and stronger than most of his com^

* Catalogue, 74a

Auxiliary Washes. 119

posed drawings, because it is a simple study of an object, and
the whole scale of light and dark is exhausted in representing
that one thing. The purpose of the artist has been to disengage
the lighted sides of the masses of foliage, which he has effected
by boldly washing in the shadows. The foliage and trunk are
in strong line of a decided and energetic character.

Immense numbers of drawings with firm lines and light washes
were executed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In
our own time they are less- common, because the development
of full water-colour, which is carried to completion without visi-
ble line, has led artists to sketch more on the principles of
painting and in colour. Collections of old Dutch and Flemish
drawings are rich in examples of pen and wash. Generally
speaking, the wash is kept very subordinate; it is sometimes
extremely pale and delicate, so as not to obscure faint lines.
Adrian Vandevelde would lay light washes first and then complete
the drawing in pen-lines, which were often strong and thick. In
Rembrandt's drawings the wash is not often more important in
relation to the lines than aquatint on an etching, and in some
of them it performs the same office of uniting and sustaining
the lines that surface-ink does on a plate which is artificially
treated by the printer.

Many different kinds of line may be used in combination with
wash. Some are preferable to others for reasons which may be
given in this place.

The pen-line is the most commonly employed, yet it is not
the most perfect It is extremely convenient, because the pen
is a firm instrument, which allows the hand to rest on its point,
so that it does not require any great amount of manual lightness
and delicacy ; but it is hard and not very pleasant to the eye.
A pen-line consists of two hard boundaries, like the sides of a
gutter, with black fluid between them. Within the line itself
there is no variety of definition, and there is no gradation ; all
is equally definite, all is equally black. The line given by the
point of a brush charged with thick water-colour is in all respects

I20 The Graphic Arts.

preferable, especially if the paper has a grain so that the brush
may drag and catch upon it a little. Unfortunately, the brush
requires great skill, and even when the skill is there it requires
constant technical care, which the pen does not ; so the conse-
quence is that artists who are perfectly able to use the brush-
point employ the pen instead. Still, the pleasantest and most
perfect washed drawings are those comparatively rare ones in
which the washes are laid first on a light pencil line, the firm
lines of the ultimate forms being added afterwards with a brush.
In these the process is harmonious, the same kind of instrument
being used for both wash and line. The brush-marks may have
another advantage over those of the pen ; they may be in slight
relief, like printed etched lines, if a rather thick pigment is
employed, whereas a pigment of that thickness would never flow
from a j)en.

There is a drawing in the British Museum by Mantegna which
shows the principle of the wash and brush point in all its sim-
plicity. It represents two men fighting with big clubs, one of
them holding his weapon high in the air. They are drawn in
outline, which is partially filled up with pale shading in wash,
and this shading is supported by pale diagonal lines with the
brush on the principle of the line-engraving of that time.
Bolder and stronger work will be found in Tintoret's * Massacre
of the Innocents.* * Here the lines are in bold brush-marks
everywhere, oflen thick, the washes are vigorous, but chiefly flat
and all over the subject. No man ever made more frequent use
of this combination (wash and point of brush) than our own
Turner, but it was in his coloured work, and I prefer to post-
pone the examination of it till we come to water-colour.

Black chalk lines will bear a wash, and hold their own against
it better than pencil. Lithographic chalk does not offer a
sufficient resistance to a wash, but it may often be of use when
the wash is finished for retouching. Its line has a rich, fat

* Also in the British Museum. Autotyped by Braun. No. 134 in his
catalogue.

Auxiliary Washes. 121

quality, which some artists like. It is useful for giving a granu-
lar texture when employed on slightly rough paper.

There is a fine example of black and red chalk in com-
bination with bistre in the British Museum, by Rembrandt.
The subject is 'The Almighty, accompanied by the Angel,
appearing to Abraham.' * The drawing shows the great techni-
cal strength which may be derived from composite technical
means. Rubens was a most powerful sketcher in chalk, and
sometimes used wash along with it. As examples of chalk
relieved on wash I may mention two studies of a man taking a
thorn out of his foot.t The figure is drawn on rough, defective
paper, in red chalk, and relieved on a background of light wash.
By this means the background was kept very quiet and unob-
trusive, greatly to the advantage of the linear drawing in the
figure.

Lead pencil is good for the line, but only if the drawing is
intended to be pale ; as we have already observed, it is over-
powered by strong shading. One of the best examples I
remember is a river scene by Jan Van Goyen, in the Dijon
Museum. The boats, church, windmills, &c., were drawn deli-
cately, but distinctiy, and then upon this drawing Van Goyen
passed a slight brown wash, just enough to spare him needless
labour with the pencil and to give a tender shadowy quality.

T^^ principle of the line with the auxiliary wash may often be
detected in classes of art where it is not avowed or looked for.
It is found not only in various kinds of engraving, but also in
pictures both in oil and water-colour. The effect of it upon
those different arts will be examined in the chapters concerning
them. For the present it is enough to observe that the effect
of the principle is by no means confined to obvious cases. It
runs in a more or less subtle way through many of the graphic
arts, and acts generally as a relief from labour by making form
and shade expressible together without great finish in either.

* Crachrode Collection, Oo. 10, No. 121.

t British Museum, Fawkeuer Collection, 5213.

122 The Graphic Arts.

Line drawings are sometimes not only shaded, but tinted and
even coloured with the brush. I may mention as an example a
drawing in the British Museum, by A. Van Ostade,* of a family
scene in a peasant's house, where the brown pen-line is seen in
combination with elaborate tinting in green, blue, purple, and
red. Van Huysum made line drawings of flowers and fruit in
brown ink on a ground washed with bistre,t the spaces so
mapped out being afterwards appropriately tinted in water-
colour. Tinting of this kind bears exactly the same relation to
full colour that pale flat washes of Indian ink or sepia bear to
full light and shade. They are not contrary to the truth, but
within or below the truth, like the expressions of well-bred
English people.

Comparison of the Auxiliary Wash with Nature, — The auxil-
iary wash on a linear drawing is not an imitation of nature, but
a movement in the direction of natural quality. There can be
no real imitation so long as strong lines are visible under the
wash, and the principle is to leave them always visible. The
extreme reserve, restraint, and moderation with which auxiliary
washes are used keeps the artist safe from any laborious rivality
with the elaborate and infinitely graduated shades of the natural
world. This is really one of the strongest recommendations of
the method, for when a method obviously does not set up any
claim to complete natural truth the artist has a security against
falling into copyism. The very limitation of his means compels
him to choose and think.

The wash is an approach to nature in this, that it gives the
real quality of natural shade, which no linear shading ever can
give. A delicate wash of Indian ink is shade itself. In many
washed drawings, however, the shade is either quite flat or
nearly so, whilst in nature it is tenderly graduated. To intro-
duce anything at all equivalent to natural gradation in auxiliary

* Payne Knight Collection, Oo. lo.
t Dijon Museum, No. 1465.

Auxiliary Washes. 123

washes would be to make them face more laborious than their
secondary character requires. It is enough that they carry the
mind towards nature as a ship takes us towards Jerusalem. The
rest of the pilgrimage has to be accomplished by the mind of
the spectator^ in the exercise of its own powers.

124 The Graphic Arts.

XH AFTER XIL

THE SILVER-POINT.

THE silver-point is hardly ever used at the present day
except by a very few persons who take an interest in the
technical history of the fine arts, yet it was a favourite instru-
ment of the old masters, and I expect to be able to show that
they had excellent reasons for Hking it. The disuse of the
silver-point, after lead-pencils came into fashion, is one of the
most curious details of technical history. It is wonderful that
an instrument which had once been the servant of the most
illustrious artists who ever drew on paper should have come to
be neglected and despised by their successors, and neglected
so completely that they lost the tradition of its use. Notwith-
standing the tendency which prevails amongst us to attempt
revivals of old arts, the silver-point is forgotten. Only two or
three curious people in Europe know how it was used for
drawing.

The abandonment of the silver-point is to be regretted be-
cause the instrument has peculiar and precious qualities of its
own. It is a hard pencil which can scarcely be said to wear,
which does not break or require cutting, and which gives a
beautiful dark grey line of the most exquisite clearness and deli-
cacy.'' It is just such a pencil as a lover of perfection in form
would naturally be tempted to select, a refined stylus which liter-
ally and truly encourages refinement of style.

The silver-point is simply a little rod of pure silver thick
enough not to bend under the pressure of the draughtsman's
hand, and sharpened just to such a degree that it will make a

Silver-Point. 125

fine line on paper without piercing it. When set in a wooden
holder this instrument strongly resembles an etching-needle,
and the resemblance is not merely external, for the work done
has similar though not absolutely identical qualities in both
cases. Each needle is a true stylus, and it is the property
of every kind of stylus to make a line which is of uniform thick-
ness throughout. Is this an advantage? No, it is not; the
brush point, with which a thin or a thick line, or a line thick
at one place and thin at another, can be drawn by simply using
different degrees of pressure, is a more obedient instrument
than any stylus. Even the pen is better in this respect, that
it will draw a thick line or a thin one, though it is far from hav-
ing the suppleness of the brush. Nevertheless, as we have ob-
served elsewhere, it is always a mistake to condemn any art as
'imperfect * when great masters have practised it. The arts they
practised were often limited ; they were never imperfect.

If the line drawn by the silver stylus were ragged and rotten,
if there were no telling whether it would get safe to the end or
stop half way like an ink line on greasy paper — or if instead of
a continuous line it broke away into a series of dots at unfore-
seen distances from each other, like the lines in bad photo-
graphic reproductions — if it were accidentally thick or thin
— if, in short, it were not to be relied upon by the artist, then
silver-point drawing would really and truly be an imperfect art
and deserve the rejection which has been its fate in modem
times. No real technical imperfection of this kind would have
been tolerated by Raphael or Lionardo ; but as they found the
silver-point sure and true they easily bore with its uniformity of
line. We must remember, too, that the stylus could be more or
less sharpened, and that the artist could keep two or three of
different degrees if he required them. The common practice,
however, seems to have been to draw with one point, and that
rather a sharp one.

The objection to the silver-point, which naturally suggests
itself to the practical mind, is that silver does not mark pa^ex.

126 Tlie Graphic Arts.

On unprepared paper it leaves a mark so pale as to be useless
for artistic purposes ; but paper is easily prepared as it was by
the old masters, and when that has been done the marks of the
point ar^ a dark grey, equivalent in tone to a hard lead-pencil,
but resembling an etching in character.

A light wash of opaque white is all the preparation needed.
The white may be tinted with any colour you please, or left
by itself if you prefer it. The old masters amused themselves
by preparing papers with the most various tints, which are
often wrongly supposed to have been the work of the paper
manufacturer.

. It costs a little trouble to the artist to tint his own paper, but
he has the advantage of getting precisely the shade and hues
he likes best, and foresees to be most perfectly adapted to the
intended drawing. The paper itself should be rather rough,
it should have a slight grain, but it is not an advantage for it to
be coarse in grain. It ought to be stretched as if for water-
colour, and the preparatory wash laid evenly and rapidly with a
broad camel-hair brush.

As the opaque white may be tinted, paper so prepared will
take lights in pure white if the artist cares to add them at the
last. These harmonise best with the lines of the silver-point
when they are sharp and fine, and applied with the point of a
small camel-hair brush. There are many instances amongst the
works of the old masters in which these lines of white have
tiuned black and spoiled the drawing. I may mention as an
example of this a Peter Perugino* representing an angel leading
a youth. The drawing is in silver-point, on a greenish ground,
and what were intended to be high lights in thin sharp touches
of white, are now black lines. It is probable that Perugino used
one of the preparations of lead which, as Field observes, are in
water-colour 'changeable even to blackness.' With modem
preparations of zinc or barytes there would be no reason to
apprehend such a result.

* British Museum, D. 1860-6-16-139.

Silver-Point. 127

The old masters not only touched the lights of silver-point
drawings with white, but they also very frequently used auxiliary
washes in shadows, exactly on the same principle as the washes
on pen-drawings. These, of course, were kept pale on account
of the delicacy of the line. In the drawing by Perugino, just
mentioned, the shades are washed with brown. There is a lovely
drawing in the British Museum, by Rogier Vander Weyde, of a
lady with a sort of pork-pie hat,* an extremely delicate and care-
ful piece of work in silver line with pale bistre shades.

Silver-point was sometimes used in combination with pen
lines or touches; but although this combination is authorised
by the example of illustrious men, such as Raphael and Holbein,
I cannot think it a happy one, and all their skill and judgment
were required to make it even tolerable. To borrow a meta-
phor from music, I may say that the note of the pen is harsh
and loud in comparison with that of the silver-point; and
though it may not be precisely discordant, it is heterogeneous.
There is a sheet of creamy white paper in the Louvre, with
beautiful studies of hands, faces, and drapery, by Raphael, in
silver-point, but in a head the eye, lip, and neck, liave been
touched with a pen.f There is great prudence and discretion
in the use of the pen here, and still one cannot help feeling
that the silver-point would have done better without its too
powerful auxiliary. There is a particularly beautiful drawing in
the Louvre, by Holbein, drawn with a combination of silver-
point, pen, sanguine, and auxiliary wash of Indian ink. J It is
the portrait of a young lady, looking down with a smile on her
face and the inscription als-in-ern on the border of her dress.
The various means used in this drawing are combined with con-
summate art. It combines great delicacy of modelling with de-
cision, and the decision is chiefly given by the thin but firm and
black pen-line.

* British Museum, D. Oo. 9. No. 2.
t Louvre, 322.
X Louvre, 639.

128 The Graphic Arts.

The combination of silver-point with sanguine is not so dan-
gerous as its use with the pen, because the value of sanguine as
a dark is not so great as that of ink, and is consequentiy more
on a level with the grey of silver. Many readers will remember
the exquisitely truthful studies of the hands of Erasmus, by
Holbein, in the Louvre ; done, no doubt, when Erasmus sat for
his painted portrait. Those studies are in a combination of
silver-point with sanguine, — the clear precision of linear draw-
ing being got in the silver line, and the suggestion of life given
by the sanguine shade.*

Although silver-point is generally used for sharp lines it may
be used, like a lead-pencil, for broader lines by inclining it or by
sharpening it so as to make a broader stroke. There is a study
of two draped figures by Sandro Botticelli in the British Mu
seum t on a pink ground. In this the silver-point is sometimes
used Uke a line with a broad lead-pencil.

The most refined beauty of the silver-point is reached when
the lines are thin and clear, and there is no necessity for them
to be dark, or strengthened by any foreign help. There is no
more lovely drawing in the world than that of some thoroughly
accomplished master when he is confined to pale tones, because
then he gets relief and projection by delicate skill and not by
main force. It was one of the best results of Italian culture to
produce and appreciate this refined kind of drawing, but even
in the northern schools there are good examples of it, the main
difference being that in the northern work the line itself is never
so elegant as in Italy. For delicate drawing in its perfection,
both as to line and shade, I know of nothing to beat two pro-

♦ Marked 517 and 518 in the Louvre Catalogue. I observe that the
Catalogue says the studies are in silver-point, sanguine, and pierre noire.
Lest this should mislead, I ought to say that the studies of hands referred
to in the text are in silver-point and sanguine only. Pierre noire was used
exclusively for another and more rapid sketch of a hand on 517, and for
the slight outline sketch of Erasmus on 518.

t British Museum, D. Pp. i, 24.

Silver-Point. 1 29

files of a child in the Louvre,* exquisitely drawn by Lionardo
with the silver-point on blue-grey paper and relieved in white.
The upper profile shows the upper lip, in the lower one this is
hidden by the cheek ; in both, whatever is seen of the features
is modelled with more real success, though in very pale tones,
than many a 'vigorous* drawing in chalk, and than many a
boldly-blackened etching. There is an extremely pale drawing
in the same collection, by Vittore Pisano, of a man with a serious,
almost ill-humoured face looking to his right. It is most beauti-
fully modelled, yet there is not a dark line in it, and the drawing
is hardly visible at a little distance. Albert Dtirer*s pure silver-
point drawing of Cardinal Albert of Mayencef is like a piece of
delicate engraving, and quite strong enough, there is no need for
more blackness. So in the British Museum there is a fine head,
by Domenico Ghirlandajo,t with long, wavy, flowing hair, and a
skull-cap. It is delicately shaded in diagonal Unes like an old
Italian print, and the whole drawing is pale, on paper tinted
with a very pale brown. Hundreds of other examples might
be quoted to show how little the great masters felt the necessity
for deep blacks in their drawings.

The reader will understand, of course, that in denying the
necessity for black, I am thinking of drawing only and not of
chiaroscuro, though even under certain conditions of natural
effect there may be very perfect chiaroscuro without black, or
anything like it. Still, drawing and chiaroscuro are two very
different pursuits ; the object of drawing is form, the object of
chiaroscuro is a sort of music in which lights are the treble
notes, and darks the bass, just as colour is another sort of music
with hot tints and cold ones. I find that when people who have
not thought much about these matters hit upon a drawing which

♦ These drawings do not as yet (1881) bear any number in the Louvre
Collection.

t Numbered 500 in the Louvre Catalogue.

X British Museum, D. Pp. i, 26. This drawing was attributed by
Waagen to Filippino Lippi.

9

I30 The Graphic Arts,

is done purely for form, they are likely to say that it is ' weak,'
meaning that the shading of it is not dark enough. There is no
discipline better calculated to correct this error than the study
of silver-point, and of pure form through its means. A good
silver-point drawing may include a moderate degree of shading,
but only for the expression of form ; the study of chiaroscuro is
better carried on with charcoal or sepia.

Comparison of Silver-Point with Nature, — All linear drawing
is an interpretation only, and when the line is hard and clear, as
it is in silver-point, the interpretation is sure to be remote from
the real aspect and texture of natural things. Silver-point, as
practised by the best masters, can scarcely be said to come
nearer to nature, in the sense of imitation, than primitive old
line engraving, which (as we shall have occasion to show later)
was very remote indeed from anything like imitative complete-
ness. The advantage of silver-point as a discipline is not that
it makes us imitate the aspect of nature as it is, but on the con-
trary that it forces the artist to practise a high degree of ab-
straction. The instrument is admirably adapted for the rendering
of pure form, and it is best adapted for the purest and best form.
A very refined and sure draughtsman of the figure, with a well-
shaped model before him, will find the silver-point delightful ;
it will be to him like a chisel, and his prepared paper like mar-
ble, on which he will delicately carve the lines or swellings of
face or limb in a determined degree of relief. But, perfect as
the silver stylus is in the hands of a form-draughtsman, it is of '
no use to the colourist or the chiaroscurist. I mean that if the
colourist desires to interpret in black and white the fiill values
of local colour he will find the range of the silver grey too lim-
ited for him, and if the chiaroscurist wants the gloomy and mys-
terious effects of nature, he will not only find the silver grey too
pale, but the line too hard and definite for his purpose. So the
conclusion is that the silver-point is a draughtsman's instrument,
and that it only interprets a part of nature. It is favourable to

Silver-Point.

131

classic form, which is harder, clearer, and more definite than
nature, but it cannot deal with mystery and depth. Let us ever
remember that limitation of means is not an evil in the fine arts ;
the real evil is in their misapplication. A good silver-point
drawing is sufficient in itself, and we no more desire to blacken
its pale beauty than we desire, under pretext of more perfect
truth, to strengthen some delicate sonnet with violent verses
from a tragedy.

132 The Graphic Arts,

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LEAD-PENCIL.

THE fate of the different graphic arts is strangely and vari-
ously affected by changes of fashion and accidents of
invention. The pen was always an artist's instrument, but the
use of it never increased so much as between the years 1865
and 1880, and the increase was not due to any more general
appreciation of its merits, but simply to the photographic pro-
cesses of engraving which were brought to perfection between
those dates, and which reproduced ink lines more certainly than
any other. The lead-pencil, on the contrary, was less cared for,
and less used, comparatively to other instruments in the eighth
decade of the nineteenth century than in the sixth and fifth.
Very few artists of the present day (1881) make a high degree
of skill with the lead-pencil a special aim in itself as Harding
and Ingres did. It is, of course, very difficult to know what
may be done now in private studies which remain unseen in
portfolios, but a French artist affirmed, probably in ignorance
of certain works by Professor Legros, that the last French
figure-painter who used the lead-pencil in its severe and serious
perfection, was G^rome, and that his best work with that instru-
ment was done before the fall of the Empire.* Very charming

* Amongst living artists of serious purpose and high acjcomplishment
who use the lead-pencil habitually I ought to mention Mr. Bume Jones.
All his recent drawings are in very pale lead-pencil, answering exactly to
the silver-point of the old masters. We were anxious to have one of
them reproduced for this volume, but the delicacy of these drawings made
the^ enterprise almost hopeless. Of all drawings those in pale lead-pencil

The Lead'PehciL 133

work has been done since then by Maxime Lalanne, both in
France and Holland ; but that, of course, is less severe. The
pencil is still very extensively used for sketching, as it is ex-
tremely convenient for taking memoranda from nature; but
pencil-drawing as a separate and independent art is not greatly
valued, nor even appreciated at its proper worth. Photography
has not encouraged it, for it is difficult to reproduce pleasantly
in any but the most expensive kinds of photographic engraving,
and although it is much employed in drawing upon wood, the
impressions from the engraved block do not preserve a trace of
its peculiar quality.

Drawings in lead-pencil may be divided into three dis-
tinct classes, which answer very closely to drawings in other
materials.

First you have the pure line with the point. A hard pencil
is usually prepared for this, and the result is a very near approx-
imation to the qualities of silver-point. The lead-pencil is,
however, inferior in convenience, as the point is constantly be-
coming blunter, which the silver-point does not, perceptibly.
The pencil, therefore, requires incessant sharpening for delicate
drawing, which is a tiresome interruption. There is this com-
pensation to be considered, that the work may be effaced, which
silver-point cannot be.

The hard point is most valuable for sketching details, and
this for a simple reason of a material nature which will be easily
understood. A soft pencil will not give a fine, sharp line, and
when the line itself is broad, it occupies a great deal of space
on its own account, and cannot turn round ]jgk things without
either filling them up or making them bigger tnan they ought to
be. For example, if you try to draw the letter e of this type

present the greatest difficulties to the photographic operators. We tried
a very beautiful one by Gerome, one of the most perfect he ever made,
but the delicacy of the drawing was such that the defects of the paper
overpowered it in the photograph, and the experiment had to be aban-
doned.

t/

/

134 The Graphic Arts.

with a thick line — say with a line a tenth of an inch broad —
one of two things must happen, either you must fill up the little
open space in the letter, or else, if you respect that, you must
increase the size of the letter externally by a black border added
to it I may go even farther and say that nobody could draw
the letter with a thick line on this scale, for the line would be
sure to give false forms. So it is with the details of architecture,
or anything else. All details in a drawing on a small scale must
either be in fine, hard lines or not drawn at all. I do not call
it drawing of detail when a piece of delicate sculpture on a
cathedral is represented by a shapeless spot of black lead.

In obedience to this necessity (it is a matter of pure neces-
sity and not of choice) every artist who wishes to put many
small details into a drawing must use a sharp thin line and a
hard point. This is why we find so many point-drawings
amongst the studies of Turner. The plain line on white paper,
quite firm and clear, not obscured by any linear shading which
would set up a contest with the organic lines, this is what re-
cords the greatest number of details in a given space. Such
drawing has, of course, no pretension whatever to developed
form, or local colour, or chiaroscuro. It has but one purpose,
which is to state in clear language how things are made, and
not how they appear.

This is another of those numerous instances in which a par-
tial expression is most readily accepted by those whose knowl-
edge is most complete. Few artists when using the brush have
been less linear than Turner ; few artists have been better ac-
quainted with the. laws of effect and with the art of representing
it,* and yet he Was a steady practitioner of point-drawing which
is an interpretation of nature, by abstraction, on principles di-
rectly opposed to the synthetic interpretation by painting.

The pure hard line may be preserved in pencil drawing as

* I do not mean that he always observed the laws in his own practice,
but he noticed them in nature. He observed them so far as they seemed
to him compatible with the interests of his picture.

The Lead'PenciL 135

entirely dominant and yet be sustained by a suggestion of shade
lightly spread with a stump. Here we have, in another material,
exactly the same thing as the flat wash with the pen line upon
it. The wash is often preferred to stumped lead in combination
with clear pencil lines. The great object is to have the shade
flat and delicate in quality, with no lines in it to make a con-
fusion with those of the pencil. Such auxiliary shades, whatever
the material, ought always to be strictly subservient, and not to
obscure the organic lines on which the constructional strength
of the work depends.

Pencil drawings are often composed of strong lines used in
combination with soft shading which is neither applied with a
stump nor yet precisely linear. The greatest danger of this
manner is that the shading may become too predominant and
too black. Notwithstanding the success of the pencil manu-
facturers in producing very black lead-pencils, it is still true that
the blackest shades of lead are unpleasandy opaque, and that
they have a shining surface which makes them inferior, for^
artistic purposes, to the fine dead surfaces of charcoal or black
chalk. Again, however black a lead-pencil may be, it is never
so perfectly black as some other materials, so that it is useless to
set up a contest with other arts in that direction.

The commonest use of the lead-pencil is neither in pure line
nor in any intentional and settled combination of line with
shade, but in a careless play from one to the other. The clever
pencil sketchers of buildings and landscape who seek for what is
picturesque, and who value animation of manner more than
severity of study, draw form and effect together, or so much of
both as they think necessary. Their work is not so much an
abstraction, hke the pure line, as a selection from the whole '
field of nature, and a synthesis of the qualities selected.^ There
is nothing to be said against the system, but it can never develop
that exquisite sense of form which the discipline of the hard
point &vours. Here we have the old antagonism between the
beautifid and the picturesque. Synthetic sketching, with its

136 The Graphic Arts.

love of broken line and its interest in effect, shows the pictu-
resque aspect of the world, whilst careful drawing in sustained
line gives us the beautiful, or rather, perhaps, expresses that
intellectual beauty which is more in the mind of the artist than
in the aspects of the things he sees.

Harding said that the pencil did not imitate local colour well
without much labour, and that * such imitation, unless it could
be done with judgment, should never be attempted.' The ob-
jection to local colour applies in an equal degree to light and
shade. There is no reason in the nature of the material why an
artist who uses lead-pencil should absolutely reject either local
colour or light and shade, but there is a good reason why he
should deal cautiously and reservedly with both. The reason is
because form is easily overwhelmed in the darkening of paper
by rubbing lead upon it, and because the material does not
permit of any very pleasant or cleanly recovery of form when
once it has been obscured. It can hardly be necessary to point
out the clear distinction between the sort of shading which is
enough for modelling, for the expression of roundness, and the
full, strong shades of nature. Plenty of modelling may be got
in pale tones, as we have seen in several drawings with the
silver-point, but that is not light and shade in any complete
sense. It may simphfy matters to reject local colour entirely
and give rather strong light and shade in its place ; but since
full light and shade involves much blackening of the paper,
which is what we desire to avoid, the rejection of local colour
would be but a partial gain. Surely the most philosophical plan
is to recognise local colour without insisting upon it : to explain
that a black skull-cap is darker than the white hair of an old
man without attempting to rival the teal blackness of the velvet.
In the portrait of Constable, drawn by Leslie and prefixed to the
biography, the blackness of the cravat and coat is clearly indi-
cated in comparison with the white of the collar, but it is not
imitated. Again, the white of the collar is detached from the
tone of the complexion by delicate shading ; and yet, when we

The Lead-Pencil. 137

come to examine the drawing closely, we see that the paper is
left to do duty both for the collar and the lighter parts of the
face, though in nature they could not be of the same tone.
This, then, is an instance of what I should call mitigated local
colour and mitigated shading in the same work ; and this miti-
gation of the strong contrasts of nature is, I believe, the most
judicious and learned manner of dealing with the difficulties of
lead-pencil. In the portraits by Ingres, which are models of ex-
cellent drawing, it is quite true that the coats were left white, but
this was simply because he did not choose to finish them. The
proof that he did not systematically eliminate local colour is
that he gave it in the hair and eyes. It is quite plain that he
was glad of the spots of dark in the eyes and under cravats, and
generally in any Uttle dark place such as a hollow under a chin.
The flesh was delicately shaded so as to suggest flesh colour and
not plaster of Paris. In the portrait of Ingres by himself,* the
black cravat has its local colour, and that of the velvet coat-collar
is indicated. I do not see how portraits of that class could
have gained in any way by the abolition of local colour ; which
is certainly of use, with the discretion of the master, in suggest-
ing some of the contrasts and oppositions of nature. On the
other hand, complete local colour everywhere on the dress
would have been heavy and tiresome.

To relieve this heaviness of the pencil shade artists often have
recourse to tinted papers which suggest a great deal of local
colour when lights are detached in opaque white applied with
the brush. The paper then serves as middle-tint all over, the
pencil gives darks, at least to a certain extent, and Chinese
white the lights ; a plan which both economises labour and per-
mits a nearer approach to the truth of nature. Every amateur
has experienced the sudden sense of increased power which
comes upon an artist when he passes from white to tinted paper,
and detaches great masses, such as those of a mountain, by

* The admirable pencil drawing marked No. 1829 in the Catalogue
of tlie Louvre.

138 The Graphic Arts,

scumbling a light opaque wash on the sky behind them. We
have seen that the old masters very frequently tinted their papers
for silver-point and relieved the lights with white ; a plan which
in our own day has been most extensively followed in popu-
lar lithography. In the choice of papers for this purpose we
have to be on our guard against our natural tendency to have
them far too dark. The white lights look brilliant on^dark
paper, but they may look too brilliant, and the lines of the pencil
may easily appear too pale. Notwithstanding the example of
the old masters who prepared their papers with all sorts of un-
likely tints, even with pink and green, it is evidently most
reasonable to choose tints which serve simply as degrees of
darkness, and attract little attention in themselves. Delicate
greys, warm or cool, as the subject of the drawing may seem to
require it, are always the least objectionable. We sometimes
meet with studies in pencil on cold blue paper, which makes
the whole drawing chilly, and gives it a particularly miserable
appearance if there are nude figures in it. Of course I do not
wish to imply that the tint of the paper is to take the place of
colour, but it may suggest colour associations remotely to the
mind. There are tints of paper which slightly suggest flesh and
which give warmth and life to a drawing of a face which would
look ghastly on green or blue.

Whatever be the tint selected, it is well to remember that it
can never be anything more than a flat tint, and that the sug-
gestion of modelling must be added by careful drawing. The
paper does something, it saves some trouble, but the help it gives
is slighter than it at first appears, on account of its inevitable
flatness. To remedy this, some ingenious paper-makers have
tempted amateurs with gradated papers, presenting a ready-
made blue sky passing down in regularly diminishing blueness
from the zenith to the horizon, where yellow land (easily turned
green with a wash) went up to meet it, and white clouds might
be obtained by scratching with a penknife. These devices are
vain and futile. Nobody can put a gradation on a drawing,

The Lead'PeticiL 139

suitable for the subject, except the artist who knows exactly
what his own intentions are.

Besides tinted papers intended to suggest local colour by
opposing it to high applied lights, papers with a moderate tone
are often employed when there is no intention of putting any
lights upon them at all. Ingres did not make his pencil por-
traits on crude white paper, but on a yellowish tone, just dark
enough to bear up his work without taking the light out of it.
Absolutely pure white makes a drawing look meagre and cold,
a slight warm tint prevents this ; but if the tint is at all exces-
sive, the lights in the drawing go out.

Notwithstanding the frequent practice of very eminent men,
it may, I think, be taken as a certainty that pencil drawings of a
really high class are better without white lights added with the
brush. There can never be any real harmony between brush
touches and pencil hnes, besides which the pencil is an instru-
ment of quite sufficient delicacy and power to be enjoyed for
itself alone. Nobody is ever so barbarous as to put white
touches on a delicate engraving, which, though its lines may be
finer, is certainly not more delicate as an artistic expression than
the pencil-strokes of any artist who can truly see and feel. Com-
mon^d cheap as the lead-pencil may appear, it is truly an artist's
instrument, with powers of expression only limited by those of
the man who holds it, and it deserves to be respected for itself.

If opaque white is used at all in combination with pencil,
it must be on parts of the paper which are quite clear of black
lead, for if it passes over lead, or gets mixed with it, very objec-
tionable false tones are produced. These are common enough
in drawings upon wood, but there they are of no consequence,
as the drawings are cut up by the engravers.

Smooth papers are suitable for delicate line work with the
hard point, even Bristol board is not too smooth for that, but as
a general rule papers with a fine but perceptible grain are the
most agreeable to work upon. Some artists even use papier
vergi^ which has a strong wire-mark, but this is not of ajK^j

140 The Graphic Arts,

advantage, except that it prevents shading from looking too
opaque by leaving white lines in it, in the wire-marks. These
lines, however, have a mechanical appearance, which is not desir-
able in a work of fine art, and in my opinion /^^/>r vergS ought
to be rejected not only for pencil but for all kinds of draw-
ing whatever. It may be used for printing etchings, but that
is a different matter, as in plate-printing the pressure flattens
the paper, and the roughest papers become smooth upon the
copper.

When soft pencil is used on rough paper the consequence is
that the molecules of lead are caught upon the hillocks of the
paper, and do not get down into the valleys between, so that
the lines, instead of being really continuous, are a succession of
small black spots. This broken effect is liked by some artists,
because it avoids hardness. There is in the British Museum a
grand pencil study, by Bonnington, of the stem of a ship with a
shield of arms and two anchor chains, the side of the vessel with
her ports being seen in perspective; this, like several other
sketches in the same volume, is on rough paper and in black
pencil, but there is also evidence that Bonnington knew the
value of smoother paper when he wanted finer lines, as there are
studies by him in hard pencil much more minute and definite,
and the paper for these has a fine grain.

Almost all styles of work in pencil resolve themselves, on
analysis, into a very few elements. Bonnington, ij his coarser
work, used line, grey shade, and a certain black touch which
gave accent. He sprinkled those black touches very freely over
his drawings, wherever the subject jgave an excuse for them.
Prout used bold lines and dots, he was a very strong mannerist,
and not a desirable model for everything, though he rendered
good service in his time by awakening the sense of the pictu-
resque. In the first half of the nineteenth century a very
common mannerism amongst picturesque pencil-sketchers in
England was to finish the line either with a dot or with a short
sharp curve, which gave a sort of apparent decision and spright-

The Lead-Pencil. 141

liness to the work with little reference to nature. This man-
nerism may be found even in the elegant drawings of Henry
Edridge. Except this fault, which is not very unpleasantly con-
spicuous, a drawing of * La Tour de la GroSse Horloge, Evreux,*
by that master, is one of the best pencil drawings, with little
shading, that I know.* It would have been better still had it
been a little quieter, and not so demonstrative of manual dex-
terity ; but it perfectly expresses the character of the street pic-
turesque in France by means of broken line and a very slight
suggestion of shade. The tradition of this kind of drawing
has survived to our own time, for Lalanne is at least equal to
Edridge in grace and vivacity, and in the skill with which he
interprets streets and towers. Another tradition, which is not a
survival but a revival, is that of the severe figure-drawing in
pencil which is now practised by M. Legros, and which is
founded upon old silver-point drawing of the noblest kind.
There are some admirable examples of his work in the Mu-
seum at Dijon, his native place. Those drawings are in thin
line with sober shading, chiefly diagonal, and on slightly tinted
paper of a warm tone. They might be hung in the Louvre,
amongst the great Italian masters, without offending any one,
for it would be difficult, even there, to find sounder examples
of self-direction and self-restraint in drawing. -f

Comparison ^of Lead-pencil Drawing with Nature, — The
lead-pencil may approach more nearly to the qualities of nature
than the pen, because when cut broadly and a little aided by
the stump it will produce a series of grey tones without lines
resembling the textureless shades of nature.

* In the British Museum. Reproduced by Mr. Dawson and published
in the Portfolio for December, 1880.

t The drawings alluded to are — i, A study of a head with a beard;
2, A lady reading a book ; 3, A nude female, seated, holding up one arm
and resting on one hand ; 4, A female figure, nude, seated, with the padms
o£ the hands turned upwards.

\

142 The Graphic Arts,

For all purposes of interpretation the pencil line is as good
as that of the pen. The draughtsman with the pencil has the
advantage that he can imitate tones truly within certain limits
with the side of his pencil and, at once, without changing the
instrument, interpret with the point on the principles common
to all point-drawing.

The imitative inferiority of the pencil to some other means of
representing nature is that its range of tone is not so great.
The very darkest black-lead, rubbed till every pore of the paper
is choked up with it, is after aU nothing but a grey between
silver-point and black chalk. The paleness of black-lead is
hardly credible until demonstrated by contrast, but a little
crayon Conte^ or a drop of ink by the side of it, soon gives the
true measure of its depth. Besides this there is the additional
inconvenience that the black-lead shines, and wherever it does
so all the relations of tone go wrong together.

The want of depth is only an obstacle to the imitation of
nature, as excellent interpretation is possible in pale lines.
The true office of the lead-pencil is therefore to interpret by
line with a moderate use of tone, and it ought never to attempt
full tone. It should be considered as a kind of silver-point,
with the additional convenience of flat or gradated auxiliary
shade. The finest and most valuable lead-pencil drawing is
sparing of shade. It leaves all the higher lights in blank paper
and avoids great spaces of strong dark, giving darks only in
small spaces, thereby making them seem darker. It does not
attempt much imitation of texture. Local colour it suggests,
but does not try to follow out to its full consequences. In
short, the office of the lead-pencil with regard to nature appears
to be interpretation combined with strictly moderated and lim-
ited imitation. The taste and knowledge of artists is shown in
the restrictions they place upon themselves in the presence of
nature, when the instrument in their hands requires delicacy
and discretion, so that its limited powers may not be over-
strained and abused.

The Lead-Pencil* 143

The reader may again be cautioned against the erroneous
criticism which condemns limited means as 'imperfect.* A
man's voice is not imperfect because he cannot sing all the
notes on the piano. The lead-pencil is a perfect instrument of
limited range. The wonderful improvement in its manufacture
invented by Mr. Brockedon * gave us pencils without grit,
which are as perfect as if they were darker and softer silver-
points. The very cheapness of them, and their uniformity of
sound quality, make them less appreciated than they deserve.

♦ Mr. Brockedon's invention consisted in solidifying the powder of
graphite by hydraulic pressure, which allowed the graphite to be freed
from the presence of grit, and cheapened pencils by using material that
would have been otherwise unavailable. Another improvement has been
introduced by Mr. Faber, who provides artists with long leads in holders,
so as to avoid the troublesome necessity for cutting. These are most
useful for hurried memoranda from nature, as they spare us an intolerable
interruption.

144 ^^ Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER XIV.

SANGUINE, CHALK, AND BLACK STONE.

BLACK chalk is natural or artificial Like lead-pencils
chalks have been improved by artificial processes of manu-
facture, as the natural product is not always free from grit,
which the manufacturer carefully expels. Field tells us that
natural black chalk is ' an indurated black clay.'

The old masters used a black which they called black stone,
or Italian stone. The black stones employed by them were
native minerals, probably of different chemical compositions.
The number of black minerals which might be used for drawing
purposes is considerable.

Black chalk has two advantages over the lead-pencil. It is
very much darker, and shading produced with it does not
shine. It is, however, greatly inferior to lead-pencil in preci-
sion and delicacy of line. A hard pencil could define quite
clearly and precisely many minute delicacies of form which a
chalk hne could not possibly follow. Much of the inconven-
ience which might be occasioned by this inferiority is avoided
by making chalk drawings on rather a large scale, whilst the
lead-pencil is used for small works, such as drawings on wood,
where delicacy of line is of more importance. The increase of
scale permits the use of a clumsier instrument. Chalk may often
be used for small sketches if minute details are not required.

Artists who have not been accustomed to use chalk fmd it
difficult to get over the clumsiness of its point, which remains
tolerably sharp only for a very short time, and very easily breaks
off, in which it is exacdy the opposite of the silver-point : the

Sanguine^ Chalky and Black Stone. 145

lead-pencfl occupying an intermediate position between the
two.

This defect in chalk would be very serious if point-drawing
were its chief use, but it is not so. Chalk is understood to be
rather a rude instrument for point-drawing, but to have other
and compensating qualities.

The line which can be made easily and naturally with chalk
is not very thin and sharp, but of a charming quality. On
paper perfectly suitable to it the gradations from comparative
clearness to a crumbling texture are not only agreeable in them-
selves but they recall one of the most charming qualities in
nature — the passage from the definite to the less definite —
visible in all natural objects which are seen together, and not
purposely and wilfully isolated. Skilfiil draughtsmen, accus-
tomed to the peculiarities of chalk, obtain with it a sufficient
degree of clearness for moderate definition, but do not care to
have all lines thin and clear, because thicker and softer lines are
often nearer to the morbidezza of nature. The chalk-line dif-
fers from the pen in this that, whereas in the pen-line two hard
outlines enclose a black space, in the chalk-line the space is not
enclosed by rigid limits, but dies away in a sort of crumble,
thereby approaching much more nearly to the sought-for vague-
ness of the mature schools of painting.

The darkness easily attainable in chalk permits its use on
dark-tinted papers, which extinguish black lead completely.
Pale lines, such as those of silver-point and hard pencil, may be
used efficaciously on tinted papers, but they must be light in
tone ; dark papers make the drawing look as if all its lights had
gone out, because the lines are not dark enough to make them
light by contrast. The darks of chalk being exceedingly deep,
make the lights efficacious even when the paper is not hght in
itself. I do not, of course, speak of the highest lights, or of
glitter, which are usually added in white chalk.

It is a convenience, in working firom nature, to be able to use
rather dark tinted papers, as they spare the eyes in suiv^Vv\\\^»

10

146 The Graphic Arts,

It is even possible to work upon them .comfortably without a
parasol, when white paper would be blinding. This is a prac-
tical reason why landscape sketchers may prefer chalk to pencil.
Another reason is that chalk gives a finer range of tones with
the stump.

The principle of line and shade which we have seen adopted
in the pen-line and wash may be acted upon with great advan-
tage by the draughtsman in chalk, without having recourse to
any other material. He can get all his quiet lineless and tex-
tureless tones and shades with the stump, and then lay lines
upon them where they are wanted to express character or define
form. The technical harmony between the stump shade in
chalk and the line, also in chalk, which is drawn upon it is com-
plete, which cannot be said of all combinations. For example,
chalk and wash will go together, but they are certainly less har-
monious. The brush-line is what goes most harmoniously with
a wash.

Chalk has been used abundantly by artists until the last few
years, when charcoal has in some measure superseded it. The
difference between the two will be stated in the next chapter.
Chalk has an important position as the parent of another art,
which was of very great importance before the invention of
photographic engraving. One great department of lithography
is an imitation, and often a marvellously close imitation, of chalk
drawing.

Not only full tone, but considerable vigour and truth of tex-
ture, may be got in chalk by a skilful artist. In this quality it
is greatly superior to lead-pencil, silver-point, and pen-and-ink.
Eminent painters, however, are rather apt to neglect texture in
their drawings, even when their paintings show that they thor-
oughly understand it. Texture, as a subject of study, has been
carried farther by lithographers. All the qualities of chalk are
shown in perfection in good lithographs, which is a convenience
for students who have not ready access to original drawings.
Painters use chalk in a more secondary and subordinate way ;

Sanguine, Chalky and Black^Stone. 147

they do not care to develop all its technical resources, but they
accept readily enough those which present themselves without
research. As an example of excellent rapid painter's work in
black chalk, with nothing else to help it, I may mention a won-
derful study of an elephant by Rembrandt,* remarkable for its
economy of labour. The lines of shade follow the wrinkles of
the animal's skin, and are at the same time shading and expla-
nation. If you compare that study with any first-rate modem
lithograph, in full tone and texture, you will at once see the
difference between the easy, careless use of chalk, and the
laborious following out of all its possible qualities. So in mod-
em landscape work, if you compare the chalk drawings of Con-
stable,t which he made for his own use, with the lithographs of
Harding, which he made for publication, you will understand
the difference between the simple, straightforward work of an art-
ist who was only thinking about nature, and the showy perform-
ance of one who was thinking about his own clever methods of
interpretation and his own almost unrivalled manual skill. Plain
chalk drawing may be of the greatest use and convenience to
painters, but it is quite unnecessary for them to bring it to any
technical perfection. The best of them use it anyhow, and
often with much simple force and originality. One of the best
recommendations of Millet's numerous chalk drawings is their
simplicity. He did not work for any elaborate texture or mod-
elling, but got his forms well together by light, tentative strokes,
and then, being sure of all his main proportions, put in the prin-
cipal darks boldly, without attention to minute detail. His
style of drawing conveys the impression that it was done from

* British Museum, D.

t A few of Constable's chalk drawings were reproduced in VArty
vol. xiii. p. 171, &c. to illustrate an article on Constable, by Mr. Frederick
Wedmore. The reader may use such reproductions for reference, but
he should remember that they are generally very much coarser than the
originals. The study at p. 173, of a river flowing through a plain, which
is separated by a wood from distant hills, is very simple, but it contains
all the chief elements of a fine and impressive landscape.

148 The Graphic Arts,

memory, so much is sacrificed, and so the chalk was a more
suitable instrument for him than the pen or the etching needle,
because it is richer in itself, and better prevents the appearance
of vacancy. In the noble drawing of the * Faggot-makers ' (two
men making a faggot in a wood, and a woman half carrying,
half trailing two others) the paper is furnished by the mere
thickness of the strokes, there being very little detail, whilst
heaviness is prevented by the white depressions of the papier
verge showing through. There are numbers of slighter drawings
by Millet in which the chalk is used more openly, and simply
as a darker sort of pencil, leaving the white paper free in large
spaces of sky or ground, and showing how little he thought it
necessary to produce complete pictorial chiaroscuro. The
* Deux Faneuses * was a good example of this class of draw-
ings.* Two women are raking hay in a field, where the sky
and the sun-lighted ground, as well as the lighted parts of the
dresses, and of a large haystack in the background, are all left in
pure white paper, as they might be in an etching, without any
recognition whatever of local colour, or of pale shades, though
both might be given very accurately in chalk if the artist chose
to employ his time for that purpose, but the linear composition
is just as good without them.

In studies from nature black chalk is often used in pure line,
as if it were a hard pencil. Some excellent studies of this class
were made by Edmond H^douin for his picture of buckwheat-
mowing, * Faucheurs de Sainfoin.* f The men are represented
in various attitudes with their scythes, and so linear is the draw-
ing that there are always two lines for the woodwork of the
scythes, except where a strong shadow is cast upon it. Why
chalk should be preferred to pencil or pen for studies of this
class I do not see, unless the artist thinks that its crumbling
texture prevents hardness and makes the drawing more nearly

* This drawing was in M. Alfred Sensier's sale, where it bore the
number 236. It was reproduced in VArt^ vol. xi. p. 190.
t Reproduced in VArt^ vol. xi. pp. 30, 31, 32, 33.

Sanguine^ Chalky and Black Stone. 149

related in quality to the painting which is to be produced from it.
The preference for chalk is the more curious in M. H^douin's
case that he is perfectly accustomed to the clear and sharp line
which he uses with very great skill in etching.

I have said that chalk might be sustained with a wash. If
any wash is used Indian ink is the best, as it is never desirable
to set up a chromatic opposition between the lines and the flat
shades which are to sustain them. Millet often washed his
chalk drawings partially, and sometimes rather extensively. The
fine drawing of the Faggot-makers is washed on the left, flatly,
the wash going over some tree-trunks and coming down upon
the foreground, but it is resorted to sparingly. Another fine
drawing by him of a man on horseback struggling against a gale
of wind on the sea-shore is washed much more extensively, and
in three or four different tones, so that here the chalk lines may
be, and are, more meagre. Washing of this kind answers pre-
cisely to ink left on the surface of a plate in printing etchings.
It is positively the same thing, so far as artistic results are con-
cerned.* Whenever the wash is resorted to it should be kept
well subordinate. The best use of it is to extinguish a multi-
plicity of little lights, quietly and unobtrusively. When rough
paper of a very light colour is used, such specks of light are
ex^emely numerous, and must be put out in some parts where
they are not wanted. In grey and other toned papers they are
much less injurious, because the papers themselves lower them.

Black chalk on grey paper has one immense advantage over
lead-pencil. It can be accompanied by perfectly harmonious
lights in white chalk, which has all its own characteristics except
darkness. Lead-pencil has no such friendly opposite, for white
chalk does not resemble it, and white applied with the brush
is also technically discordant. The opposition of white and black

♦ I do not know in whose possession are the two drawings by Millet
mentioned above. I have not seen the originals, but Braun's autotypes
are so good that one knows everything from them, even the nature of the
wire-marked /0/^ vergi qh which Millet drew.

1 50 The Graphic Arts.

chalk on grey paper has been resorted to by innumerable artists,
amongst them by masters of the greatest eminence. There
are only two rules of importance to be attended to in this com-
bination ; one is to take care that the paper is not too dark, for if
it is the lights will stare ; and the other is to mind never to mix
the two chalks together on the paper, as their grey is almost
certain to set up a conflict of its own with the tint of the paper^
and to appear louche, as the French say. The qualities of black
and white chalk will be familiar to every reader, as their effect
has been ably reproduced in thousands of lithographs. Origi-
nal drawings are generally rougher and more straightforward,
some of the finest being very rapid and energetic indeed.
Turner used the two chalks very frequently in landscape sketch-
ing— even in drawing-books, where they easily got rubbed
off", more or less, by the fiiction of the pages.* It is an incon-
venience that white chalk cannot be fixed without weakening it.
I do not remember any studies in white and black chalk more
recommendable (as technical examples) than those of Prud'hon.
They are not dashing things — there is no bravura of style about
them — but they are inspired by a genuine classic taste which
is always elevating, and quite a different thing (both in its in-
spiration and in its effects) fi-om the false pretension to classic
taste which infests so much French work of the same epoch.
The most delicately beautiful Prud'hon I ever saw, as an ex-
ample of his lightest manner, is a head of the Virgin in the
Museum at Dijon.f It is on grey paper which is first stumped
with a darker grey, and on this he made a wonderfully free and
light drawing in black and white lines, not one of which seems
to have cost any labour or hesitation, or to have been disturbed
when once laid. Such work as that is done in the temper of
what Matthew Arnold calls ' sweetness and light ' — I mean that
the manner is charming and gracious, whilst it is illuminated by
knowledge.

* Sir Frederick Leighton*s favourite materials for studies without
colour are black and white chalk on tinted paper,
t No. 182 in the Catalogue.

Sanguine, Chalk, and Black Stone. 1 5 1

Drawings have very frequently been made in red chalk, or in
sanguine, a mineral of another variety of red. The old masters
were fond of making red drawings, a practice which fell rather
into disuse in the first half of the nineteenth century, but has
since been revived, like most of the old varieties of art. A page
on the general philosophy of drawing in red will not be out of
place here.

For convenience of illustration I will take an engraving that
can be printed from in different colours, so that you can com-
pare the proofs. Suppose, then, that you take an engraved
copperplate to the printer, and tell him to prepare, besides his
ordinary black ink, some red ink which shall print like red chalk,
or like sanguine. Suppose your copper to be engraved with
some vigorous darks, then your proof in black ink will give these
darks m all their depth, but the red proofs will not be able to
get down to them. The black ink, like a diver with weights in
his hands, goes down to the very bottom ; the red ink, like a
diver without weights, manages only the transitions between the
top and the half deeps.

Now, as black may be presented in any degree of paleness
(we call it grey when it is pale), it can always give with per-
fect precision every one of the tonic values of red (that is, the
degrees of darkness there may be in red), whereas red cannot
give the great weights, or dark shades of black at all, it is plain
that in choosing red an artist is depriving himself of resources
in chiaroscuro and gaining none in return. The same is true,
but to a much smaller degree, if he chooses brown instead of
black. Then why do artists ever choose red at all for drawings
— why not work persistently in black ?

The original reason I take to be that red, especially when used
on paper of a slightly yellow tone, and when the subject is a
naked figure, suggests the warmth and glow of carnation. Of
course the old masters who drew in red never supposed that
they were using colour, since they made the eyes and noses of
their figures as red as the cheeks ; but, though not using colo>\x

152 The Graphic Arts.

in the trae sense, they were suggesting warmth and life. The
degree to which the choice of drawing materials may suggest
life or the contrary when there is no colour whatever in the
sense of making and copying tints, may be fully understood by
an experiment : Let the reader draw a living figure in red chalk
on cream-tinted paper, and a corpse in black chalk with white
lights on a very cold grey paper, he will soon see how the mate-
rials help the expression of life and death.

The old masters, as we have seen, were in the habit of tinting
the grounds on which they drew in silver-point There is a
head in the Louvre* attributed to Albert Diirer on a circular
piece of green-tinted paper — a fat, healthy, good tempered
looking face enough, but the green paper makes it ghastly, like
children's faces round a snap-dragon. There is also a highly-
finished study of a torso of a young man with a cloth round his
loins, a drawing of the Florentine school,t but this is on pink
paper, and not death-like at all, though the figure is decapi-
tated. J:

These elementary ideas of the suggestion of life and death
influenced the figure-painters. Red chalk and sanguine have
been used in landscape, but not often, and there are even
engraved landscapes printed in red, but these are rare. Brown
has been the favourite colour for landscape monochromes when
black has been departed fi'om, and in this choice of brown we

* Catalogue of Drawings exhibited, 504.

t Catalogue of Drawings, 419.

X The wonderful suggestive power of the tint of paper is shown in the
following instance : Theodore Rousseau began a picture of a sunset on
the sands of a region in the Fontainebleau Forest, called the Jean de
Paris. Intending to paint a red sunset, he prepared his canvas with ver-
milion, and on that he drew his subject, I think in black. He worked a
little upon the drawing, but very little, and his friends liked the unfinished
picture so much that he left it in that state. After his death a heliogra-
vure was made from it by M. Amand Durand, which was printed on red-
dish paper in imitation of the vermilion ground of the canvas. It so
completely suggests the idea of a glowing sunset that so far as the mental
impression is concerned it is equivalent to a work in colour.

S anguine f Chalk, and Black Stone, 153

have another instance, not of colour, but of chromatic sugges-
tion and analogy. Brown is not the most prevalent colour of
landscape, but it is the colour which can be most easily turned
into the landscape colours, as the old artists found by experi-
ence when they painted on monochromes.

It may, however, always be concluded that when an artist uses
red chalk or sanguine he does not intend to produce a very
powerful effect. It is as if he took silver-point or pale pencil
instead of black chalk. He may get beautiful modelling and
good effect within a limited range, but it is simply not possible
that he should ever get the strong effects of black chalk or
printing ink.

Examples of fine sanguines are so extremely frequent in every
large collection of drawings by the old masters that it is unneces-
sary to particularise them. One of the loveUest in the British
Museum is the charming study of a female face and bust by
Andrea del Sarto, which was autotyped and published in Mr.
Comyns Carr's selections. I do not know a more beautiful
drawing ; so learned it is, and yet so perfectly unpretending in
style, every line tenderly touched, every shade followed to the
full expression of rounded form.* As a good example of a
rougher and readier kind of work, I may mention the straight-
forward study by Titian of a man holding a halbert.f If the
reader notices that study he will observe that the lines of shad-
ing are rounded across the muscles and varied in direction,
which is a technical advance on the old diagonal line, here
relegated to the background.

Although considerable strength of effect may be got in red,
still an artist accustomed to the full scale of black may often
feel, when working in red only, like a man confined to an upper

* The reproduction in Mr. Comyns Carr's publication is a good auto-
type, and may be relied upon within the usual limits of autotype, which
the reader will find explained later on in this volume ; but he ought not
even to look at the dreadfully unfortunate reproduction of the same draw
ing by Yves and Barret, which appeared in VArt June loth, 1877.

t Louvre. Catalogue of Drawings, 376.

154 ^^ Graphic Arts,

storey. On the other hand, he may like to preserve the
warmth of the red lines. These conflicting desires were
reconciled by the union of red and black chalk in the same
drawing, or sanguine and black stone, which amount to the
same thing.

The use of the three chalks, white, black, and red, for the
suggestion of colour, has never been carried farther than by
Rubens. There are two very fine studies of his in the Louvre,*
about twenty inches high, which were made use of in a picture
called the * Jardin d*Amour.* One of them represents a lady
with a fan, and so dexterously are the chalks used that it re-
quires only a little imagination to see a picture in the place of
the drawing. The flesh is in red and white chalk almost exclu-
sively, but the eye is touched in black. In the dress this is
ingeniously counterchanged ; here black is used everywhere in
very broad touches, with white high lights, but the ribbons are
picked out in red. It is quite plain that this is not done for
light and shade, as the value of the red could have been per-
fectly well rendered in grey ; it is done with the deliberate in-
tention of suggesting colour to the mind, though of course it is
not real colour, nor even, without the help of imagination, any-
thing approaching to it.

Many readers will remember the Academy studies in three
crayons by Muh-eady, some of which were lithographed and
published by the Government for the Schools of Art. These
were very highly finished, being carried as far in delicacy of
drawing and fiilness of modelling as Mulready's learning and
skill could go. If the reader remembers them he is sure to
have noticed how wonderfully they suggest flesh, considering
the simple means employed, f Mulready's paper had much to

* Nos. 556 and 557 in the Catalogue.

t I am thinking particularly of three, dated 1848, 1852, and 1853, the
last a female, the others male. The large one dated 1852, of a man
seated and resting on his hand, comes nearest in its treatment to the
expression of flesh.

Sanguine, Chalk, and Black Stone, 155

do with his success, as it supplied an element of flesh colour.
He would never have been able to give his models anything
like English skins on such paper as that used by Paul Veronese
for the negro's head in the Louvre,* a coarse brown paper,
quite as good for that purpose as any other. The drawing upon
it is in black stone, with touches of sanguine, and it is a model
of fine, broad, comprehensive sketching, soft on the face, ruder
upon the hair.

Comparison of Chalk, Sanguine, and Black Stone with Nature,
— The dark greys and the blacks of chalk and black stone are
much nearer nature than those of the lead-pencil. The essen-
tial characteristic of deep natural shade is that it reflects little or
no light, and this is the quality of chalk.

Chalk lines, on slightly rough paper, resemble in quality the
edges of oil-paint on rough canvas, and have altogether much
more of the painter-like quality than lines with the silver-point
or hard pencil, which aire more like engraving. This resem-
blance to painting is also a resemblance to nature, for in nature
the boundaries of things rairely present a hard and sharp out-
line. They do so occasionally, and then they can be imitated,
even in chalk, with special care ; though when chalk is used
easily and carelessly, its line is soft;, being bounded by a series
of irregularities.

Red chalk and sanguine, when used on judiciously selected
papers, call to mind the flesh tones of nature by suggesting
their warmth.

Red chalk and sanguine, in combination with black chalk or
black stone, and with white chalk, on tinted paper, may be
made to play together in such a manner as to suggest full col-
our to the imagination when the subject is judiciously chosen.
They would never suggest the colour of a blue sky or a green
field, but they can convey to us that of a gravely-dressed
figure.

* Catalogue, 141.

156 The Graphic Arts.

On the whole the three chalks present one of the most pow-
erful means known to us for obtaining a record or a suggestion
of many truths of nature with great economy of labour, espe-
cially if the drawings are on rather a large scale^ but they are
not favourable to minute detail

Charcoal. 157

CHAPTER XV.

CHARCOAL.

THIS art of charcoal-drawing, which now occupies a very
high position in the opinion of artists as an independent
means of expression, is a most curious example of what may be
called promotion amongst the graphic arts. It is not quite an
isolated example, for there have already been one or two in-
stances in which arts have been strangely neglected for a long
time (even when they already perfectly existed), and afterwards
been suddenly taken into favour and developed by the practice
of very able men. Still, I do not call to mind a single instance
quite so remarkable and surprising as the history of charcoal.
The means of working in other neglected arts were in the hands
of a few — only a few men had the necessary materials and
were likely to be led to their employment, so that it was not
very surprising if, with the narrowness which the handicrafts
encourage in the human mind, these men should have gone on
working in their old ways and not have developed the new pos-
sibilities of the things that lay about in their work-rooms. It is
not surprising, to mention the most conspicuous instance, that
silversmiths who made niellos should not have become copper-
plate engravers and printers, though they were divided from
such work by the thinnest of all imaginable partitions ; but it
really is rather surprising that hundreds and thousands of paint-
ers should have had pieces of charcoal in their colour-boxes
and never been tempted to make any other use of them than
the first slight sketch on each of their canvases — a sketch not
valued for its technical qualities at all, but only because it could

158 The Graphic Arts,

be so very easily effaced and annihilated as a thing worthless in
itself but a convenient step to something better. The universal
custom was to play with charcoal on the canvas till the forms
were roughly in their places, and then to define the forms with
pencil or ink through the charcoal, after which a whiif with a
rag or a bundle of feathers removed the slightly adherent black
dust, and the charcoal lay quietly in the box till the beginning
of another picture. If a drawing on paper was required, the
artist employed chalk or pencil, but never thought of charcoal.
Perhaps its qualities were entirely unsuspected ; perhaps, also,
it may have been thought useless to devote labour to mere dust
that a touch could wipe away. It had been used in a few
drawings by old masters, but in combination with chalk, and
the rare instances of its employment easily escaped attention.
It is believed that the real origin of the modem charcoal-
drawing has no reference whatever to old work of any kind,
but is simply a development of the sketch on canvas with which
painters began their pictures. There was a change of material
— instead of canvas they took paper, and finding that the paper
was favourable to the work they carried it further, until finally
they reached the full development of charcoal as an indepen-
dent art.

It appears that the designers of church windows had used
charcoal for some time to indicate the intended degrees of light
and dark in the spaces between their ink lines, but nothing could
be more remote than this kind of drawing (dependent as it was
on the rigid line in another medium) from the true spirit of
modem work in charcoal. The modem art is really a painter's
art, and the daughter of painting. It was first practised by
some French painters, of whom Decamps and Troyon are the
best known beyond the limits of their own country. Since their
time the number oifusinistes has immensely increased in France.
Almost every painter has used charcoal more or less : it is con-
stantly employed for studies in the schools of art, and landscape-
painters use it in their work fi-om nature. At the present date

^ Charcoal, 159

(1881), the best known masters of charcoal in landscape are
Allong^ and Appian, who are paintefs ; and Lalanne, the cele-
brated etcher. Amongst painters of the figure who have made
a separate reputation by their drawings in charcoal, I do not
know of one who excels L^on Lhermitte in every important
quality of the art.

Charcoal-drawings may be executed on paper or canvas, or
even on the clean plaster of walls, and fixed there ; but of all
materials paper is the most used. The quality of its grain is of
great importance, as it is sure to affect very strongly the quality
of the manual work, and also the particular kind of natural
truth which the artist will be able to interpret. If it is too rough
it catches the charcoal too strongly on its little eminences, so
that the artist finds it difficult, if not impossible, to get any
delicate textures, and has to shade sky and water as if they were
rock. If, on the other hand, the paper is too smooth (as Bristol
board, for example), the charcoal does not bite upon it properly
— it seems to have no hold, — and good shading is not easy.
The best papers have a grain, but rather a fine grain, and very
even in its particular kind of roughness, like some fine-grained
stone. Some draughtsmen in charcoal, headed by Lalanne and
Lhermitte, have a liking iox papier verge — paper with a strongly
visible wire-mark. In the process of manufacture the paper-pulp
dries thinner where it meets the wire, which consequently leaves
a small hollow like a furrow in earth. The charcoal passes over
this furrow without getting into it, so that the furrow remains
white, unless the charcoal is rubbed into it purposely. The
consequence is that you have many straight white lines going
across your drawing, and others going at right angles to them
at measured intervals. Can this be any advantage? Allong^
says no ; he thinks that there is nothing in nature answering to
these straight lines, which he looks upon as an intrusion and an
interference, and he will not use paper in which they occur.
On the other hand, Lalanne has a strong preference for this
papier verge. For a long time I could not discover the le^aotxi

i6o The Graphic Arts.

for this preference, but was fully persuaded that there must be a
reason, as there alwa3rs is* for technical preferences in the fine
arts. At last I found it out.

All artists know that one of the worst faults in shading is
opacity, they know that shade ought not to be like black marble
which the eye cannot penetrate, but rather like dark waters in
which the eye seems to dive, as it were, to some indeterminate
depth, and in which it discovers mysterious gleams of confused
light, whereby the darkness is tempered and modified. Well,
the wire-mark interrupts the shade — it does so no doubt in a
mechanical manner, and that is the fault of it, a fault that I
cannot help considering serious, notwithstanding the practice of
very eminent men — still the interruption is there, and the eye
is not ungrateful for it.* Again, as the charcoal catches the
ridges of the paper it seems as if the artist had drawn his subject
in a great number of horizontal lines which seem less heavy than
continuous shade. The reader may see the effect of this in
Lhermitte*s drawing of a market-place which accompanies this
chapter. The charcoal was applied to the surface, simply, and
wherever the pressure was not great these horizontal lines or
markings are produced, the furrows being left white, but where
the pressure is increased there is a tendency to fill up the fur-
rows, as the black gets down into them ; and wherever the
pressure is extreme, as in the bits of deepest black, the furrows
are quite filled up, which by contrast is very effective. If the
reader will take the trouble to examine the penumbra in the
shop he will perceive that the nature of the paper gives it a
variety and transparence which would not have been attained
so easily by any other means. The paper is very dexterously
made use of, also, to suggest the texture of the stone, but the
wire-marks are not allowed to interfere with the faces. See how
entirely they are absent from the fece of the young woman who
is offering the apple.

* The lines of the wire-mark, though mechanical, are seldom hard, but
have a sort of indeterminate natural edge which is not disagreeable to. the
eye.

I Bhadii

Charcoal. i6i

If the reader will now turn to the drawing of the 'Rjvulet.'by
Allong^, he will at once see the immense difference which may
be produced by so simple a naatter as the choice of paper.
Allonge's drawing was done upon papier ve/i'!, that is, paper with
an even grain and no wire-raaik. After consulting Lherraitte's
drawing, where the whe-marks are so conspicuous, the reader
may very easily imagine for himself what would have been the
effect of them on the trees, herbage, and waler in the ' Rivulet.'
They would have come across all those tree-trunks, except in
the darkest parts, hke horizontal stripes or bands, they would
have shown through the herbage and in the water. The lines of
the slighter tninks would have been broken by them into a series
of dots. I quite think that for the class of subjects which M.
Allong^ deals with his prejudice against whe-marks is a great
safeguard.

An artist may do as he likes with charcoal or with anything
else. He may, of course, take a piece of hard charcoal and
draw in pure line with it, if he prefers line, or he may draw in
Une first, then fix it, and add auxiliary shade with a stump,
answering the same purpose as a sepia wash on a line in indeli-
ble ink ; or, again, he may begin by shading his subject and then
mark organic Unes upon it wherever he feels them to be neces-
sary or useful to clear up his drawing and give it a decision and
accent. All these methods are legitimate enough, but the true
spirit or genius of charcoal-drawing is in the interpretation of
nature by pure shade with no assistance from line, and the use
of charcoal in this sense is the best discipline that it affords to
painters of all kinds as well as to etchers and engravers.

The Graphic Arts contain three distinct languages. There is
the language of the line, represented by various kinds of hnear
drawing, and by none better than silver-point or very hard lead-
pencil ; there is the language of relative hghtness and darkness
in spaces represented by all the means which are capable of
shading spaces with a delicately right degree of darkness ; lastly,
is the language of colour represented by all the means

1 62 . The Graphic Arts.

which can be relied upon for colouring spaces with precisely the
right tints.

It has been found by experience that charcoal is one of the
surest and most convenient means for shading spaces cor-
rectly. I do not intend to imply that the shades it gives will
be more accurate than those in a water-colour or oil mono-
chrome, but they may be equally truthful, equally delicate, and
they are superior in convenience and facility of apphcation, and
also of alteration.

I have said that the shades of charcoal may be as delicate
and as truthful as those of water-colour or oil monochromes.
This requires just one little restriction or reserve. They are
quite as delicate, and they are not less truthful in all parts of the
scale except the very lowest, but charcoal cannot get quite so
low down in the bass notes as some other kinds of drawing.
Its most intense blacks are not so dark as those which may be
easily obtained in black chalk, or in sepia.

In my opinion some restriction in the scale of light and dark
is not in itself an evil. I have already argued in this sense with
reference to silver-point, which gives darks very much paler than
the darks of charcoal. Men sometimes talk as if some kinds of
drawing had the whole scale of natural light and dark, and were
perfect, whilst other kinds of drawing had less than that scale,
and were imperfect. This would be a very inaccurate way of
stating the case. The true statement is that we have no means
at command, in any graphic art, which can be considered in
any way equivalent to the prodigious scale of natural light and
dark ; and it can be positively, scientifically proved that even
oil painting has a scale very far inferior to the natural one, so
that the difference between one graphic art and another is not
that one is adequate and the other inadequate, but that all are
inadequate, and there are only different degrees of imperfection
and insufficiency. This quite takes away the sting of the re-
proach against the paler airts. It is one thing to fail where
another succeeds, and a very different thing to faU short a little

Charcoal, 163

more in a contest against superhuman powers where all results
attained are nothing but degrees of failure. You might as well
attempt to outrun the planetary velocities by artificial means as
to contend with the dazzling splendour of nature or to rival in
any visible work of art the darkness of her deepest gloom.

Charcoal, by its want of intense blackness, does not go to the
lowest notes of chalk, and, therefore, to give it as large a scale as
possible, it is desirable that it should be on paper either per-
fectly white or very nearly so. Pure white papers are cold, but
this is remedied to some extent by the fixer, which stains the
paper slightly with a warmer tone. Pulverisers have been in-
vented which throw the fixer at the drawing in a jet of very
fine spray, as perfumes are diffused in the air ; but fixing in this
way is seldom satisfactory until the operation has been performed
repeatedly on the same drawing, and the pulveriser itself is a
very delicate instrument, which requures to be kept in a state of
perfect cleanliness, so that its little tubes and orifices may not be
clogged with dissolved gum-lac. It is much pleasanter to be
entirely independent of these inventions, and to ^il the drawing
in the old-fashioned way from behind, but when this is done the
paper must be stretched on a frame in such a manner as to
leave the back of the whole drawing perfectly accessible to the
brush. As to the composition of the fixer, it is simply a very
weak solution of gum-lac in spirits of wine, the colour of pale
sherry, and perfectly fluid, so as to enter the pores of the paper
very easily.

The artists' colourmen supply charcoal of very various quali-
ties, some kinds grey and soft, others darker and harder. It
would not be of much use to describe these in detail here,
for the qualities may vary at different times, so that the same
name may not always indicate the same thing. A few experi-
ments with the prepared charcoals which aire to be procured in
the colour-shops will settle their respective merits. I have littie
faith in a specially prepared charcoal which does not require
fixing. It is quite true that tiiis charcoal may be u§ed for

164 The Graphic Arts.

drawing, but it has not the qualities of the natural material.
I believe it is steeped in oil, but, whatever may be the prepara-
tion, it is sirilply a black drawing material, whereas charcoal-
which has not been treated so as to change its nature has most
' valuable qualities of its own which no artist who understands
and loves it could endure to see diminished.

One of the greatest merits of charcoal is that it is so easily
removed that it can be played with as the artist composes.
He can introduce new forms, alter all his arrangements of light
and shade, make experiments with his masses, and, in short,
deal with his materials as freely as an author deals with his
manuscript before it is printed. So long as the fatal operation
of fixing has not been performed the drawing is in a delightfully
unsettled state ; it is mere powder, scarcely adherent, and ready
to take its departure at the slightest notice. It seems scarcely
credible that a work of art that has the appearance of a figure
or a landscape should really consist of nothing but a number
of loose molecules which taken altogether are only a pinch of
black dust. The truth of this was borne in upon me rather
painfully upon one occasion. I had finished a large charcoal
drawing on paper well stretched upon a frame, and it stood on
my easel, where it gave me perhaps a little more satisfaction, or
at any rate rather less torment and vexation, than works of art
usually inflict upon the authors of their existence, when the
catch of the easel came down rather sharply and suddenly
upon the stretching frame, giving a peculiar shock to the whole
drawing, and most of the charcoal fell down in a rain of dust,
leaving only the pale grey ghost of a landscape behind. Every
draughtsman in charcoal has a peculiar dread and horror of the
zeal and activity of servants with that fearful instrument which
they possess, a bundle of feathers tied to the end of a stick.
One minute of light and elegant * dusting,' supposed to be a
respectful attention to your work of art, will remove it into
that limbo of things unfindable where are * the snows of yester-
year.'

^^^Tl

Charcoal. 163

I wmci

This facility of efTacement has of itself a peculiar intellectual
influence. The draughtsman in silver-point learns habits of
decision, but the draughtsman in charcoal is led into what may
be called tentative habits. He works out his ideas gradually,
plays with them, alters them, feels his way towards a more
perfect work than that which first presented itself to his imagi-
nation. It is maintained by some able artists that there ia a
great mental advantage in this mode of procedure. They say
that the first idea of the work is never so beautiful as that which
may be reached afterwartls by a process of correction and de-
velopment, that imjH-ovements frequently suggest themselves
whilst the work is in progress, and that when its material con-
ditions offer no obstacle to the immediate carrying-out of these
suggestions the advantage is indisiiutable. I need hardly say
that there are divided opinions upon this subject. Some artists
maintain that it is a severe and salutary mental discipLne to
draw at once without facilities for alteration, and that aits which
offer such facilities are so far contrary to the best discipline of
the mmd. I should say that the advantage or the disadvantage
depends very much upon the nature of the individual mind
itself, that an energetic and decided character would find such
an art as pen and ink a stimulus to its own decision, whilst a
dreamy and poetic nature might find in charcoal the most
favourable conditions for those imaginative seekings and find-
ings which are the favourite occupation of such natures, and
their noblest distinction.

Every graphic art has its own peculiar quality, sometimes
brought out with difficulty by the performer, but very visible
when he has brought it out — I mean that when the performer
is a master the very dullest of us can see what the qualities of
his art really are, and that they belong to the art in itself, his
skill being merely the means of educing them, There are, no
doubt, many mental gifts, of which imagination is the brightest,
which belong in a special sense to the man himself and not to
art, for if a critic says that a charcoal drawing is imaginative

1 66 The Graphic Arts*

he is not thinking of the particles of carbon dust on the paper
but of the artist's brain with its inward eye, its mysterious
image-making faculty, which expressed itself in the drawing.
But, on the other hand, when the critic speaks of the purely
technical qualities of shade and touch he speaks of that which
is dependent on material things, on charcoal and paper, or
whatever other materials may be used; and here I say that
the qualities, or the potentialities if you prefer it, are inherent
in the materials and are only brought out by the artist as a
violinist brings out the tones of a violin. A bad performer
with a good instrument is blamed for not having done justice
to the instrument. We know that there was more in it than he
brought out

The quaUties of charcoal are exquisite. Its pale tones may
be of the most extreme refinement, delicate pure greys, half
transparent, showing the light of the paper through and closely
approaching the quality of natural cloud, as may be proved by
the ease with which clouds are imitated, or at least suggested,
in charcoal drawings. The tones become more opaque as they
darken, but they have a velvety richness extremely valuable in
many textures, such as dark mosses in landscape, and dark
dresses in genre. The line of charcoal, when wisely used, is a
luxury to the eye ; it crumbles away from its stronger accents
with so becoming a transience, as if it did not desire to insist
rudely, but soon became less positive after every effort of asser-
tion. Any artist who can model well in drawing can delicately
and fully express every variety of roundness and projection in
charcoal, on which account it is much used for studies from the
naked figure, and the same reason makes it very favourable to
solid, well-developed forms in landscape drawing. A great
variety of textures may be got in charcoal which offers tech-
nical resources of various kinds according to the method of its
application. On the same paper it may be made to adhere in
such different ways that the paper itself seems roughly grained
in one place and smooth in another, though nothing be done to

Charcoal.^ 167

alter its own surface. Charcoal, in fine powder, may be applied
with brushes like paint ; it can be played with and altered in its
character by means of different stumps made of elder pith, of
paper, leather, &c. The bare fingers are excellent instruments
for certain purposes, as they give the charcoal a peculiar texture
of their pwn. Sometimes it is left just as it was rubbed upon
the paper without any stumping or blending whatever, and in
this state it gives a crispness, freshness, livehness to the drawing
which no stumped work can rival in those qualities.

Lights are easily taken out with the crumb of new bread
pinched and kneaded between the fingers into the form of a
small pointed stump ; but it is worth noting that where the
bread has passed the paper does not take charcoal afterwards
so well as it did before. Bread crumb in its natural state may
be used for broader spaces.

The great merit of charcoal for sketching from nature is its
wonderful rapidity. It has the advantage over oil and water-
colour of being a dry process, not necessitating delays for
drying, which, even in the case of water-colour, are a great
hindrance in the presence of nature. Besides this, charcoal
has the advantage over all linear processes, such as pen-and-ink
for example, of getting a shade at once, even on a broad space.
In the hands of an artist who has its resources perfectly at
command, the rapidity of charcoal is amazing. Many drawings
by Lalanne, executed in a single sitting of two or three hours,
seem to contain as much truth, and as sufficient a degree of
finish, as if he had laboured upon them for days. The truth
is that charcoal is perfectly accommodating as to time. There
is nothing in the process to hurry you, as you are hurried with
a water-colour wa^h that is likely to begin drying before you
can get it right, and there is nothing to delay you as you may
be delayed by the slow drying of oil. You are not compelled,
as in fresco, to work on some particular portion of your design ;
you can take it up anywhere and make any part of it ready for
going on with in a few minutes. You can efface anything that

i68 The Graphic Arts,

is unsatisfactory with a facility unknown in any other kind of
drawing that is usually practised.* Your work may be a suc-
cession of alterations and experiments which will be known only
to yourself. It may be the expression of a sudden inspiration^
or the slowly-developed, thoughtful labour of many da)rs. You
may give it the most truthful textures if you choose, or you may
express form without texture, if that severe kind of art pleases
you better. Certainly not one of the graphic arts mentioned
in this volume is more convenient or accommodating than
this.

There is one condition, however, attached to this conven-
ience, which is, that the drawing should never be of very small
dimensions. The illustrations in this chapter, restricted as they
are by the size of the page, are too small to be convenient for a
draughtsman in charcoal ; and we have been obliged to allow
• some reduction on this account, though we have serious objec-
tions to reduction in a book on the technical qualities of drawing.
The smallest size in which a charcoal draughtsman finds com-
fortable elbow-room will measure about a foot in one of its
dimensions ; but as there are many other kinds of drawing
which are perfectly adapted to small works, it is quite as well
that this should be suited for large ones. For painters, in
particular, it is better practice to draw on a large scale than
on a small one, as what is usually considered a large drawing
is but of moderate dimensions for a picture ; and it is a tech-
nical advantage to be accustomed, in studies, to the dimensions
of the work on which reputation depends. This is only one
reason the more why charcoal is essentially a painter's kind of
drawing. Of all dry processes it is the one which approaches
most nearly to the style and spirit of painting, especially of
painting in full chiaroscuro. Though used extensively by figure-

* Pencil sketches on white opaque ground-glass are convenient for
determining compositions, as the lines can be completely removed any-
where with a wiet rag, but this kind of drawing is not so much resorted
to as it might be.

Charcoal, 169

painters, and, as we have seen, admirably adapted to the
modelling of flesh, and the texture of hair and costume, char-
coal is still more closely alhed to the technical qualities of good
modem landscape-painting, in which chiaroscuro is an important
element of expression and emotion. The landscape-painter
should make his charcoal drawings as nearly as possible on the
scale of his intended pictures, for which, at a very moderate
expenditure of time and labour, they may be made most useful
chiaroscuro cartoons. I can hardly imagine anything more
valuable to a landscape-painter than a rich collection of com-
positions and impressions from nature done in charcoal on a
fine scale, with all the light-and-shade arrangements of com-
plete pictures, and yet produced so rapidly that the first in-
tention is expressed, in every case, with all the energy and
fireshness that our thoughts have when they first spring from
the brain.

Charcoal drawing is so recent an art that there are not many
examples to refer to in public collections. The best examples
are to be found in the various current Black and White exhi-
bitions, and in the reproduced works of several well-known
modem artists. Charcoal drawings are reproduced by several
different photographic processes, of which I shall have more to
say in a special chapter on photographic reproduction. Ber-
vilte, of Paris, has published a set of seventy-five plates from
charcoal drawings by Lalanne, divided into three different sizes,
many of which are most artistic in feeling, whilst all are good
examples of the artist's great manual skill. An eminent artist,
speaking of these things, said : * I might say I liked Lalanne's
charcoals, but that would not be enough ; I do more than like
them, I love them.* Four of the finest are * La Naumachie
(pare de Monceau),' * Clair de Lune dans les Pyr^n^es,'
'Ruines et Chene,' and *Le Pont.' M. Allong^, Lalanne's
distinguished rival, who is more of a pure landscape-painter
and less a frequenter of the haunts of men, has foimd his ma-
terial amongst the streams and hills of the Morvan and other

I/O * The Graphic Arts,

picturesque districts. Many of his drawings have been repro-
duced by Goupil, and the collection is still increasing. Both
the quality of the work, and the class of subject which Allong^
generally likes best, may be understood from the example in
this volume, except that his separate studies and reproductions
are on a very much larger scale. The only serious reproach
which has ever been directed against him is that his manner is
too methodically perfect, and reduces nature to a set S)rstem of
interpretation, excluding the unforeseen ; but this reproach is
equally deserved by almost all artists who have spent much of
their time in teaching. Mr. J. F. Hardy has published a con-
siderable number of charcoals through the autotype process, of
which I may mention three views of Arundel Castle as being
particularly characteristic of his style, — a style quite opposed
to the tranquillity of Allonge's manner, and seeking rather to
interpret the flickering lights and scattered darks of nature than
its quiet spaces. Mr. Hardy's manner is intended especially to
express or suggest the multitude and infinity of the elements
which compose extensive landscapes. He defines nothing, and
can hardly be said to draw an)rthing ; yet, on the other hand,
you feel that he never omits to notice anything, and though the
touches are not imitative they remind you that the things are
there, in the natural scene, and the drawing is not easily ex-
hausted. The style of Decamps, on the contrary, was one* of
simplification ; he did not give the mystery of nature, but re-
lieved himself of the encumbrance of details by omitting them,
which figure-painters are generally tempted to do for reasons
which I shall explain elsewhere.

I notice the presence of pen lines in some of Mr. Hardy's
charcoals, and this leads me to another part of my subject —
the possibility of combining charcoal with other materials.

It has been already mentioned that the designers of stained-
glass have used charcoal to fill up the spaces between the lines
of their drawings, which were done in ink. It occurred to me,
independently of this, that if an ink drawing were made so as

Charcoal, 171

to represent the lines, and the lines only, in one of Turner's
etchings, charcoal would then very efficiently do duty for the
mezzotint. I tried this in practice, and found it both a rapid
and convenient way of sketching from nature; there was no
loss of time in shading with the pen, and when the charcoal
was taken up it was a convenience to find all the forms ready
and have nothing to do but give them their due degrees of light
and dark. The only objection was that the ink line looked
very hard to be associated with such a lovely texture as that
of charcoal; a brush line in thick Indian ink, often dragged
along the asperities of the paper, was more in harmony with
the quality of the shade. The harmony is still more perfect
when the lines are all drawn in black chalk, but then you have
to make the drawing on a larger scale if you require very
minute detail, because the chalk is necessarily rather a blunt
instrument.

The comparative paleness of charcoal shades has often tempted
artists to use Indian ink in combination with them. This is best
done by finishing the charcoal drawing, and fixing it, after which
Indian ink may be u£^ upon it with perfect freedom. If the
object is merely to reinforce the charcoal without betraying the
presence of the auxiliary, the wash must be used only in well-
shaded parts, and the edges of it prevented from drying sharp
and hard. If these conditions are observed, the wash may be
used liberally enough and quite escape detection except by an
experienced eye. The only eifect of it is to tint the paper with
a more or less deep shade of carbon grey between the molecules
of charcoal dust. It equalises the tone, which in some parts
may produce a favourable result by removing crudity, whilst in
others the result may be the unfavourable one of extinguishing
a desirable brightness. This depends entirely upon the circum-
stances of the case, and it is for the artist's own judgment to
decide whether it will be an advantage to extinguish the micro-
scopic spaces of white paper or not.

Charcoal and Indian ink may be used in combinatvot^^ o^

1/2 The Graphic Arts.

^ual tenns, without any attempt to conceal the ink, which is
now no longer an auxiliary but an ally. In drawings of this
class the general relations of tone and the more important de-
tails are got first in charcoal^ which is fixed, and then the work
is taken up with the brush and carried out in full detail, quite
frankly, without hiding the sharp edges of the ink. A compos-
ite drawing of this kind is perfectly legitimate. The charcoal
foundation saves much labour, because it enables the artist to
get a great deal of modelling and texture into his work, much
more easily and quickly than he could do if he depended for it
entirely on the brush. On the other hand, the brush permits a
degree of finish in small matters which is not so easy with the
broader method of charcoal.

Chinese white is extremely convenient for high lights and
bright touches of all kinds, when the work is only intended
for reproduction and not valued in itself. In all reproductions
opaque white lights are rendered harmoniously and pleasantly
enough, and they are most convenient to the draughtsman. In
works intended to be preserved for themselves, the use of
opaque white is quite another matter \ to|e it is extremely dan-
gerous, from the unpleasant greys which it so easily calls into
existence. Suppose you have a charcoal drawing, well fixed,
and slightly yellowed by the fixing. On this your charcoal
gives rather warm grey shades. If upon any of these you have
the bad luck to wash a little semi-transparent white, you will
have a cold, discordant grey, very offensive in the drawing
itself, though the offence (which is entirely one of tint) would
be removed in a reproduction. The very utmost care should
be taken in monochrome drawings of all kinds to see that they
are really monochromes, and that no false note gets in. The
false note may sometimes be avoided by delicately tinting the
white till it exactly matches the paper, but even then it should
never be allowed to go upon black or grey shades, which would
lose their quality if clouded by a scumble.

Charcoal drawings are sometimes executed upon paper pre-

CharcoaC. 173

pared much in the same manner as the papers prepared by the
old masters for silver-point, and then the high Hghts can be
scraped ; but a scraped light is apt to look as if it were not re-
lated to the charcoal greys, which have such a different quality.
After all, by far the most harmonious high lights in a charcoal
drawing are those which are taken out with bread. They
are not so minute and brilliant as opaque white lights, nor
are they so sharp, but they are quite brilliant enough for
a sober and sound judgment, and the very absence of ex-
treme sharpness makes them harmonise with the morbidezza
of charcoal.

A charcoal drawing may be treated as if it were done on a
most harmoniously tinted paper, in the following manner. A
sheet of white paper may be covered with one even flat tint of
charcoal dust, and the drawing may be executed upon this, be-
fore it is fixed, as if it were a drawing on grey paper, and then
all the lights can be taken out with bread. The method is ex-
peditious j but it is not really so good as a drawing on white
paper, because it leaves many flat spaces, unless the grey is
entiriely worked over. ^

Crayon Cont^, and tRso lithographic chalk, are often used
for the extreme darks in charcoal, because their blacks are
more intense. I do not see any real necessity for these
auxiliaries, except when the work is done for photographic
reproduction.

Charcoal may be used as a basis for water-colour. A draw-
ing may be carried rather far in charcoal and then fixed, after
which the artist may work upon it freely in water-colour, for
which it is a safe monochrome foundation. David Cox liked to
work upon charcoal. * Try by lamplight,* he says to his son, in
a letter written in 1842, * try by lamplight a subject in charcoal,
and don't be afi*aid of darks, and work the subject throughout
with charcoal in the darks, middle tint and half, and with some
very spirited touches in parts to give a marking. When you
have done all this, have your colours quite soft, and colour upon

174 l^f^^ Graphic Arts.

the charcoal Get all the depth of the charcoal, and be not
afraid of the colour.' *

As charcoal can now be fixed with a jet of lac solution in
spray, it can be used on canvas and afterwards tinted in oil
colour. Such tinted drawings may either be left with a mere
suggestion of colour or carried farther towards the full colour
of oil pictures. An experiment in mural decoration by charcoal
drawing on plaster, made roughly but on rather a large scale^
convinced me that valuable results might be attained in that
direction without any great cost of labour \ but as charcoal by
itself is cold, a large mural drawing in this material might be
first fixed with spray and then tinted in spirit firesco, a pro-
cess explained further in this volume. For picturesque land-
scape subjects such tinted drawings would be safer than
fi-escoes in full colour; I mean that the artist would be less
likely to fall into crudity, the great danger of mural painting
in colour.

Comparison of Charcoal Drawing with Nature. — In this
comparison it must be understood that j^ure charcoal don6 for
tone and not for line is referred to, that^eing the most genuine
form of the art.

Charcoal approaches very closely to the qualities of many
natural objects and effects which are of great importance in the
fine arts. It imitates with great success the textures and mod-
elling of the human body, and also of the materials used in
costume. In landscape it is excellent for cloudy skies, so that

* It does not, however, seem to be clear that Cox fixed his charcoal
before he painted upon it, for if he had done so he would scarcely have
needed to clean the drawing afterwards with bread ; and he talks of the
colour not adhering, likely enough to happen if the charcoal were still in
powder. * When you look at it by daylight,* he says, * and clean it with
bread, you will find a number of light parts, which have been left when
the colour would not exactly adhere over the charcoal.' On the other
hand, unfixed charcoal must surely have dirtied the colour, except when
overpowered in the darks.

Charcoal. 175

by skilful hands their quality of softness in contour and their
delicacy in light and shade can be imitated with wonderful
truth. In a good charcoal sky the lights are never hard nor the
shades heavy ; we see in and about the clouds which melt into
each other or stand in bolder reUef, exactly as they do in nature.
There is a lightness, an immateriality, in the paler shades of
charcoal which may be imitated, no doubt, in some other mate-
rials, but at a far greater cost of labour, and it is this lightness
which makes charcoal so useful for cloud studies. In its imita-
tion of clear sky charcoal easily gives the feeling of permeability
and remoteness. A man must be very unskilful with it who
made the sky like an opaque dome against which a bird might
knock its head and kill itself; but, on the other hand, it may be
objected that charcoal does not so readily as water-colour give
the notion of clear atmosphere — it is always somewhat smoky
at the best. Yes, we have to admit this, the one technical
defect of the art. A cloudy or smoky sky is better within the
means of charcoal than a clear one.

All textures of earth and vegetation can be imitated with
striking truth in charcoal. Rocks, earth, grass, the foliage and
the trunks of trees, all these things are well within its means.
It imitates the qualities of water surfaces admirably, blending so
easily the reflections in calm water, and affording so many facili-
ties for rendering the changing forms of waves, not in mere flat
silhouettes, but in full mass and volume. But the grand quality
of charcoal with reference to nature is the extreme ease with
which it renders effects of light and dark. Simply to hold a
piece of charcoal in the hand and to be in the presence of
nature is in itself almost an education in chiaroscuro, so strongly
is the artist tempted to the study of shade.

Nature is generally somewhat hard upon her votaries, and
exacts from them much labour and long patience before she
gives them any substantial satisfaction, but she is very unequal
in the bestowal of that reward, and is certainly kinder to the
workers in charcoal than to many others. Their art is, of all

176 The Graphic Arts,

the graphic arts, the one that soonest repays labour ; of all
the graphic arts it is the one which soonest permits the
aspirant to express his knowledge of natural truth without
offending a fastidious taste by technical shortcomings or in-
consistencies.

Water Monochrome. 177

CHAPTER XVI.

WATER MONOCHROME.

INSTEAD of treating Indian ink, sepia, &c., in separate chap-
ters, I class them together in one, as water monochromes.
They are, in fi3u:t, exactly the same art, the mere difference of
tint in the monochrome being of no consequence whatever
when both the manipulation and the mental labour are the
same. Indian ink and charcoal are of the same colour, and are
chemically identical, since the black in each is carbon* (the
difference being in the manner of its application) ; but the use
of them requires two entirely different states of mind, for the
mind cannot be in the same state when it plays deliberately
with a dry material and works hurriedly with a wet one. But
Indian ink and sepia are used by a mind in the same state for
both, and therefore the practice of them is the same art. So with
all other water monochromes, except that if a colour were used
which could not get down to low degrees of dark the chiaro-
scuro of the drawing would of necessity be limited. A drawing
in yellow ochre could never realise anything approaching to full
chiaroscuro, and consequently, if the mind of the artist were by
nature disposed to express itself in full chiaroscuro, he would

* With charcoal the molecules of carbon are put upon the paper in a
dry state, and are at first very slightly adherent, but they are bound
together afterwards with gum-lac applied in solution as a fixer. With
Indian ink the molecules of carbon are joined from the first with their
fixer, which is a solution of glue or size. The difference seems a small
one, but in the fine arts very small differences in the employment of
materials lead to very great intellectual divergencies.

12

1/8 The Graphic Arts.

have to work in a state of self-denial with yellow ochre, in
unpleasant contrast with the ample satisfaction he would have
with sepia. This would be all the difference ; in other respects
the mental state would be the same in both cases, and, as a
matter of fact, it seldom happens that artists use pale colours for
monochromes, because they can make the dark ones themselves
pale by the addition of water. -

When a dark pigment is used for water monochrome the
resources of the art are exactly the same as those of full water-
colour painting, except that there is no colour in the sense of
tint and hue. The relative darks of colours may be rendered
quite as well as in water-colour itself. You may show the dif-
ference in weight of colour between a white horse and a black
one as well as a painter could, but you would find it impossible
in monochrome to make people understand that one horse in a
pair was a bay and the other a chestnut.

As water monochrome and full water-colour are the same
arts, except that one is chromatic and the other not — as the
same paper, brushes, medium, and handling are used for both,
it is the common practice to begin to learn water-colour by
passing through a preliminary stage of water monochrome.
There is a difference here between water-colour and oil. It is
not at all a common practice to approach oil colour through oil
monochrome, and the reason probably is that, unless great pre-
cautions are taken, oil monochrome is very offensive to the eye,
whereas monochrome is perfectly agreeable when it has water
for a medium. I will explain the reasons for this in another
chapter. For the present it is enough to say that any colour
which is used transparently with water (opaque white bemg ex-
cluded) will run up the scale from bass to treble without any
loss of its own nature. However pale, however dark, sepia is
sepia still ; from its strongest black to its lightest grey Indian
ink is still itself; so that monochromes done with these pigments
are sure to be chromatically harmonious, as every monochrome
ought to be.

Water Monochrome, 179

Although sepia is brown and Indian ink is black, the brown
pigment is the deeper of the two, for Indian ink does not dry
really black, but only a deep shade of grey which looks black
until something darker is put by the side of it. Indian ink is,
however, quite dark enough for all practical purposes of chia-
roscuro. It is much darker than the blacks of charcoal, and
charcoal offers ample resources, if only a little care is taken' to
make its darks look darker by opposition.

The qualities of Indian ink * have never been described with
so much affection" and so much talent as by Topffer, the ad-
mirable Swiss humourist. Topffer began life with the intention
of being a painter ; he was the son of a painter, loved nature
with all his heart, and had the feeling and insight which belong
to the artistic temperament. Unhappily, just as he was begin-
ning to work, an unfortunate infirmity of sight compelled him to
renounce art as a profession. He had to earn his bread as a
schoolmaster, but, like all artists who have been thrown by
necessity into other callings, he still clung to Art, if only by the
hem of her garment. Of all material objects, the thing that he
loved best in the world was a stick of Indian ink. Though a
man of the simplest tastes, he envied the Emperor of Russia,
not for his pomp or his power, not for his rank and position
amongst men, but because from time to time the Czar receives
firom his brother on the throne of China the most perfect ink
that is made in the whole world, — ' Tencre de Chine la plus
pure, la plus belle, envelopp^e dans des etuis de laque, doubles
de sadn.'

Topffer kindly cautions us, if we do not happen to be intimate
with the Emperor of Russia, so as to beg a cake of Indian ink
firom him, at least to take care that we follow good advice in
purchasing one, lest we discover, later, that we have set our
affections on an unworthy object.

* Why this substance should be called Indian I do not know, as the
best of it comes from China. We also call Chinese paper India paper.
In French, more correctly, they are called encre de Chine and papier c£e
Chine,

i8o The Graphic Arts.

If the reader expects good advice firom me he will be disap-
pointed. The quality of Indiaa ink may be guessed at by
breaking it, but dealers object to this test. If the firacture is
bright there is a probability that the ink is good ; if the fracture
is dull the ink is probably bad. A great deal of the Indian ink
sold in Europe, without being very bad, is mediocre, and as dif-
ferent from the best as tolerable poetry is from the true inspi-
ration of the Muse. The only real test of Indian ink is actual
use, and it is by mere chance that one hits upon that which is
truly and unquestionably excellent. I have possessed two good
sticks. One of them was discovered in its hiding-place by a too
appreciative friend, who borrowed it, used it for some time,
neglected to put it by, and lost it; the other was probably
stolen fix)m my bag when travelling, or unfortunately mislaid. I
mourn for both of them to this day, and have never been able
to replace them. I have several more recent purchases, very
pretty to look at, but inferior in quality. The good ink did not
clog the pen, was not overcharged with glue, and gave a black
line, with washes of various pure greys ; the inferior ink rubs
more softly and thickly, it does not give a pure black, and its
greys are brownish.* Still, I have no reason to believe that this
inferior ink would be condemned as bad in China, it is only
mediocre ; neither am I quite certain that the ideally perfect
ink sent to the Czar lias exactly the qualities of that which I
regret.

It is easy to make a poor imitation of Indian ink in Europe \
and it is probable that many such imitations are passed off in
trade with imitations of Chinese moulds and cases, but that
which comes from China itself is of different qualities. Those

* Field believes, or says it is believed, that sepia is mixed with Indian
ink. If this is so the brown tint is accounted for, and it may possibly be
considered a beauty by some makers, and purposely sought by them.
This is a matter of taste, but I prefer the cool pure greys of what seems
to me the best Indian ink, to the muddy tones of that which lies between
black and brown.

Water Monochrome. i8i

by which good ink may be known are defined as follows by
M^rimde : —

* When broken its fracture is black and shiny.'

* The substance is fine in texture, and perfectly homogeneous.'

* When you rub it with water you do not feel the slightest grit,
and if you mix it with a great deal of water there will be no sedi-
ment.'

' In drying, its surface takes upon itself a skin which has a me-
tallic appearance.'

* It flows easily from the pen, even at a low temperature, and
when it has dried on the paper a brush charged with water passes
over it without disturbing it. This property is very remarkable,
for the same ink, dried upon marble or ivory, gives way as soon as
it is wetted, which proves that an indelible combination is formed
by the ink and the paper impregnated with alum.'

M^i1m6e tells us that if lamp-black of fine quality is mixed
with the purest gelatine the result will be ink of a good tint, but
it will not shine in the fi-acture, nor will it be indelible On paper
like good Chinese ink ; yet this property may be given to it by
mixing astringent vegetable juices with the gelatine.*

Some importance is attached to the sharpness of the impres-
sion which the cake of ink receives firom the mould. A sharp
and clear impression is the result of fineness of material as well
as a clearly cut mould ; but Merim^e says that the presence of
camphor, in the proportion of two per cent, has been detected
in the best Chinese ink, so he mixed some camphor in that
which he prepared himself, and attributed the perfection of the
moulding to the presence of camphor. The best ink I ever
used had extremely sharp and delicate mouldings, but I have
observed them also on second-rate ink, so that they do not
afford a sure criterion. On the other hand, some Indian ink of

* But so as not to form a precipitate. Merim^e explains how this
may be clone, but I have not space for chemical details in this volume,
where so many things have to be treated.

1 82 The Graphic Arts,

third-rate quality in my possession has dull markings. Gilding
on the cake, and the luxury of ornamental cases to keep it in,
as if it were very precious, please children, and awaken distrust
in mature Europeans, but they signify nothing either way.
Good ink may be gilded, as TopfFer's was, and nothing is easier
than to gild bad ink also. Again, I am not sure that the marks
on the cakes, such as the dragon on the side, or the littie lion on
the top, are at all to be relied upon as the marks of trustworthy
makers. Topffer says that good Chinese ink gives forth when

rubbed a delicate odour of musk, but that the bad imitation inks

•

are much more strongly scented. It would hardly be safe to go
by this, as an imitator might scent his ink delicately, just as he
might gild it in moderation.

If the reader concludes from all this that we know very little
about the subject he will be right. We hit upon ink of excellent
quality by chance, and then we ought to keep it with a due sense
of its preciousness. Fortunately it lasts a very long time. A
wonderful number of drawings might be made with one piece.
Topffer says that his cake, which had belonged to his father, had
served him also, in regular use, for twenty years, and was only
shortened by a quarter of an inch.

In comparing the qualities of Indian ink and sepia, T6pifer*s
strong affection for his twenty years' friend and companion led
him to say rather harsh things of the product of the cuttie-fish.
He says that it is of a comparatively coarse grain, that it sustains
a shade badly, and that its shades are not so minutely divisible
as those of Indian ink. This depends on the preparation of
sepia, and is not applicable to the best recent preparations,
especially the best liquid sepia. The qualities of Indian ink are,
however, so good in themselves as to need no heightening by
comparison. The molecules of carbon which it contains are so
divisible in water that they tint a large quantity of water equally.
The most delicate distinctions of shade maybe given with Indian
ink, and, what is more, a delicate or a deep shade may be main-
tained with the most perfect purity and equality over a large

Water Monochrome. 183

surface of paper. The quality of becoming indelible in com-
bination with paper is a very great convenience to the workman,
as his first lines, or washes, need not be disturbed afterwards.

Notwithstanding these merits Indian ink is less used by artists
than sepia, probably because the greys of ink are felt to be
rather cold, and also because its blacks are not the most intense.
Another reason of a practical nature, trifling in appearance yet
not without its weight, is that sepia is to be had in tubes, and
in a convenient liquid form, which avoids a considerable loss of
time in rubbing. Lamp-black or ivory-black, in tube, may be
preferred to Indian ink for the same reason. But whatever may
be the changes of habit amongst artists, Indian ink, of good
quality, must always be esteemed as one of the most successful
inventions amongst the materials of art. Human ingenuity has
seldom attained its object so completely as the Chinese inventors
attained theirs when they tried to present the black smoke of
lamps in such a form that it might be cleanly and portable, and
convenient both for writing, for linear drawing, and for the most
delicate shading. It is one of the very few things in which
absolute perfection has been attained. It lasts for ever.

Many feeble drawings have been executed in Indian ink
which may have created some degree of prejudice against it,
just as some people have a contempt for lead-pencil because
it is the instrument of beginners. We ought to keep well on
our guard against prejudices of this kind and judge things
strictly on their own merits. Feeble persons often write verse,
but a powerful mind may also express itself in verse ; feeble
people often speak English, yet it is the language of great orators.
There is no reason why artists of the most consummate science
should not use Indian ink.

Bistre was much employed by the old masters. Field tells us
that * it is a brown pigment extracted by watery solution from
the soot of wood-fires, whence it retains a strong pyroligneous
scent.' Scotch bistre is got by collecting the deposits of the
peat-smoke behind the fires in cottages, which is afterwards

1 84 The Graphic Arts.

purified by solution and evaporation. I, myself, have prepared
a fine bistre by boiling the shavings of bog oak. The peat bogs
of Scotland are, I suppose, coloured with bistre, and the brown
rivers and lakes hold bistre in solution, so that nature tints with
it on an extensive scale. In art it is pleasant to use, and quite
permanent, but not so powerful as sepia. It gives a cool brown,
passing almost exactly through the tints that oak assumes with
age.* There can be no possible objection to its use in water-
colour monochrome, but it has been much disused in modem
times on account of the modem preference for sepia.

Sepia, as the reader probably knows ahready — for this is one
of the curiosities of artistic materials, — is produced by the
cuttle fish, which has an ink-bag. The ink dries and solidifies.
In commerce the raw material is in the solid state, and after-
wards prepared for use in various ways. There are different
qualities and tints of sepia, especially two, of which one is rather
cool in hue and the other warmer and more golden. I have
found it an agreeable practice to do all the substantial work of
the monochrome in cake sepia, and afterwards glaze with liquid
sepia of a more golden colour.!

Although sepia is a brown and not a black it is remarkable for
the intense depth of its darks, which get down to a note lower
than many shades of colourless grey which are commonly called
black. This, of course, is a great convenience as it gives the
artist a fine range or gamut. By using tube sepia he can put
very intense darks in their full strength wherever he requires

* In staining new oak to imitate old, the cool brown of bistre comes
very much nearer the truth than the hot brown of burnt umber, besides
which bistre is a real stain, and umber an earth. Some workmen go so far
as to put red in their stains for oak, which should be carefully avoided.

t The unlearned reader may need to be told that in the technical
language of painting, the word ' glaze ' has nothing whatever to do with
lustre of surface ; it merely means the addition of transparent colour to a
picture or drawing which alters the hue of the more opaque pigment
under it. The allusion in the word is to the transparence of glass and
not to its lustre.

Water Monochrome. 185

them. I have not found, in practice, that Topffer's objection
to sepia as being irregular in tint and not easily divisible into
a minute scale of shades, was tenable. With sepia, as it is pre-
pared in the present day, I do not perceive that there is any
greater technical difficulty in washes and shades than there is
with Indian ink.

The list of pigments available for water monochromes is not
confined to Indian ink, bistre, and sepia, but these are the best.
Other blacks may be used, such as ivory black, blue black, &c.,
and other browns, such as the umbers ; but the custom of artists
has preferred the three materials we have described, and fi-om
the agreeable quality of their tints and the perfection of their
working they are likely to keep their place, so that it does not
seem necessary to speak in detail about any others.

A water monochrome presents all the technical difficulties of
a full water-colour, except the purely chromatic difficulties and a
certain impediment arising from the difference of fineness in the
substance of the pigments. As for the use of the brush it is
exactly the same in both cases, and so are the scientific matters
relating to light and shade and texture. He who can make
thoroughly good water monochromes is, therefore, very far on
his way to being a good painter in water-colours ; he has nothing
left to learn but colour, the rest of his knowledge, and his manual
skill also, being continually of use in the complete art.

It is admitted, as a rule, amongst artists that the first pro-
cesses a student works in should be dry processes, such as pencil,
chalk, or charcoal, and that only after knowledge has been
gained in these ought he to attempt any wet process, the reason
being because wet processes have their own difficulties, which
may well be spared to a beginner. But, on the other hand, when
sound knowledge has once been acquired in a dry process the
experience of many artists seems to prove that this same knowl-
edge can very soon be expressed in any monochrome wet pro-
cess. Harding says, i-The mechanical difficulties of the brush
are speedily overcome — so very speedily, that I have invariably

1 86 The Graphic Arts.

found persons who were capable of using the chalk or pencil
well, use the bnish with equal fecility and power after a very
few trials.*

The first difficulty in water monochrome is the necessity for
speed. It is not always necessary to work rapidly, but it is so
imder certain circumstances, in certain parts of the work. Small
details may be painted slowly if you like, broad washes over
considerable spaces must be appUed with rapidity and decision,
because if they were done slowly they would dry at the limits
of the work done, of the band of pigment apphed, and the artist
could not extend it without leaving a watermark showing where
he had first paused. A large gradated space of sky must al-
ways be done quickly ; any hesitation would throw its gradations
wrong.

This necessity for speed in water-colour is often considered
to be a fatal objection by oil-painters, who, being accustomed
to a delightful liberty of deliberation in their own art, think that
compulsory rapidity is not only a hardship to the executant,
but contrary to the very nature of art itself. A little reflection,
however, will soon convince us that compulsory speed is per-
fectly compatible with artistic sentiment. Oratory and music
are both arts of sentiment, and yet speed is a necessity in them.
An orator is never allowed to compose his sentences with the
deliberation which is possible to a writer, and if he wants to
produce certain effects of vehemence and energy his words must
follow fast, like balls firom a Gatling gun. In music, sentiment
itself depends upon the exact observation of rapidity — every
passage must be played with the rapidity fixed for it by the
composer, the very meaning of a presto would be missed if you
played it as an andante, I am, therefore, far fi-om believing that
the compulsory speed of water-colour is an artistic disadvantage ;
I even believe that the power of working rapidly, which every
water-colour painter /«w^/ acquire for technical reasons, is of the
greatest value to him for artistic reasons also, and that a certain
dash and vehemence of utterance may often do more to express

Water Monochrome. 187

the power of natural forces and the passion of tlie human mind
than all the patience ever lavished on canvas by the laborious
artists of Holland.

In passing from line to brush-work the student has to abandon
the mental habits which are connected with the line and to
acquire the habit of seeing nature in spaces. If water mono-
chrome is intended as a means of transition to water-colour the
mental revolution cannot be too complete. The artist ought to
see nature simply as a large space divided into many smaller
spaces of different degrees of darkness, and if he gives to these
smaller spaces their due proportionate size, and their proper
relative tone and texture, his work will be fully accompHshed,
even though he may never have thought about linear beauty from
the first touch to the last. In short, a water monochrome should
have the qualities of a good charcoal drawing in full tone, except,
of course, that the peculiar nature of bistre or sepia is substituted
for the powdery and crumbling nature of charcoal.

The old masters used water monochrome most frequently in
the shape of auxiliary washes in combination with pen or pencil
lines, but there do exist complete brush drawings by the old
masters in brown or black, which, though not equal to good
modem work in manipulation, are interesting in the history of
art. There is a fine sketch in the Liher Veritatis of Claude,*
which represents a river winding through a picturesque country,
with hills in the distance, and one or two towns or villages at the
foot of the hills. The country through which the river flows is
dark, and richly, though not densely, wooded ; the river is bright
with the reflection of the sky, but the general character of the
scene is solemn rather than brilliant. What I mention it spe-
cially here for is that Claude, who was so much accustomed to
use pen and wash together, has in this instance relied exclusively
on the brush, which he uses boldly, blotting his sylvan masses,
his dark fields, and his distant hills, just as broadly as would
a modem water-colour painter.

* In the British Museum; No. 217 in Braun's autotypes.

1 88 The Graphic Arts.

The reader may find occasionally some drawing by an old
master in which the brush only has been used, without any
dependence upon line. Such drawings are boldly and broadly
begun, but seldom carried far, and may have been intended for
subsequent finish with the pen, in clear and decided line. The
true water monochrome, in full tone without line, is found in its
perfection in modem work, and is really the daughter of modem
water-colour, though by a sort of atavism in art genealogy it
seems more like its grandmother, the old monochrome, fix)m
which modem water-colour sprang. The difference is that the
eighteenth-century monochrome, sustained by lines, was tinted
in the wash and had little texture, whilst the true modem mono-
chrome has a richness and boldness which it derives from the
example of contemporary painting in full colour. The example
given in this volume, a sepia drawing by Harding, shows the
influence of modem colour-art in the relief given to objects, in
the texture and in the local colour. A little line is admitted,
more than in the Claude just mentioned, and certainly more
than is quite compatible with the strict principle of pure mass,
but the line is not obtmsively dark, and is entirely done with
the bmsh, so that it does not show very much. I need hardly
comment upon the visible skill with which the artist, at a mini-
mum cost of labour, has given to his objects a vivid appearance
of tmth. The boat is detached by light along the gunwale ftt)m
the shaded part of the hill, and by dark against the sky, the
boy's dark trousers are made use of as a contrast to the light
stone, and the dark stone as a repoussoir to the distant castle.

I have seldom met with more completely successful examples
of modem water monochrome than two drawings in Indian ink
by Mr. T. L. Rowbotham, reproduced in autotype. One en-
titled * At Rochester,' and dated 1874, represents a picturesque
rustic scene with ruinous cottages and a boat at the water's
edge, all the picturesque material most skilfully treated in pure
brush-work with lights reserved, the quiet broad grey tones of
water, sky, and distance being in contrast with the brilliant

Water Monochrome. 189

broken lights and darks of the foreground detail. When a cer-
tain advanced degree of manual skill is attained, artists amuse
themselves, and please us, by expressing much with little labour.
I have seldom seen a better instance of this than a jar near the
fishing-basket in this drawing. The whole jar with its neck and
body, its points of high light and its shade, is expressed with a
brush twice charged, and probably in one minute. The other
drawing, 'Near Guildford, Surrey,' also dated 1874, is a winter
scene with a cottage and a windmill and snow on the ground.
The beauty of this is not in brilliant sharp contrasts of black
and white detail, but in the truth of unpretending greys only
relieved by a little vigour of black on foreground trees. It is
the kind of subject which exactly suits the delicacy of Indian
ink.

It is unnecessary to go farther into the technical examination
of water monochrome, because the qualities of it in wash and
texture are the same as those of full water-colour, and will be
treated in the chapter on that process.

Comparison of Water Monochrome with Nature, — Truth of
tone may be got in water monochrome as nearly as the differ-
ence in the scale of light and dark between nature and artistic
materials will permit.

The transparence of sepia, bistre, and Indian ink, is a most
valuable quality for the interpretation of many things in nature,
and gives them a decided superiority (so far) over charcoal;
but transparence is not always desirable, and a painter in oil,
when reduced to water monochrome, may often desire a little
body and opacity. This is given to some extent by the white
paper in the lights, and the monochrome becomes itself quite
sufficiently opaque in the extreme darks ; it is the middle tints,
and especially the paler middle tints, that are sometimes more
transparent than they are in nature, from which a certain flim-
siness of appearance piay result.

There is a tendency in all water- painting, whether in mono-

I go Tlie Graphic Art 6.

chrome or full colour, to a certain hardness, meagreness, and
sharpness, which we do not commonly find in nature, and which
is very happily avoided by charcoal. Good painters in water-
colour, being aware of this, take measures to prevent it There
is also a natural tendency to flatness in water-painting (a flat
wash being more easily managed than a piece of modelling)
which has to be overcome.

On the whole a good water monochrome may be truly said
to come very near to natiure within certain limits. It avoids the
falsity of lines, it can translate local colour into light and dark
with almost perfect accuracy, and it can imitate texture very well,
though not so well as oil painting. It is not so good as chalk
or charcoal for the study of the naked figure, because deliberate
modelling is not so easy by its means ; but it is good for land-
scape sketching in which a number of distinct and delicate shades
are of more importance than laboured modelling.

Oil Monochrome* 191

CHAPTER XVII.

OIL MONOCHROME.

A CERTAIN number of oil monochromes have come down
to us from the old masters, but the greater part of them
were probably preparations for colour. Many artists have painted
in colour upon monochromes ; a kind of oil painting which we
shall have to examine more fully when we arrive at colour work
in oil.

Oil monochromes may be divided into two distinct classes,
the transparent and the opaque.

The greater number of existing monochromes are transparent,
and generally in brown. The admirable browns which we have
just spoken of as valuable for water monochrome can be mixed
with oil, but they are, unluckily, bad driers, and so have to be
rejected. It is a pity we cannot use bistre and sepia in oil, but
so it is, and on leaving water-colour we bid adieu to them. It
is a pity, too, that asphaltum is not fit for use in transparent
oil monochromes, for it is a delightful golden brown, and very
pleasant to work in. Many artists have been unable to resist
the temptation which it offers, but it allures them to destruc-
tion — not precisely to their own death, but to the ruin of their
work.*

Vandyke brown is better avoided, because it dries very slowly,

♦ By cracking and running. Asphaltum cracks in wide fissures when
it is used beneath other pigments and tears them asunder. When it is
employed as a surface glaze only it never really dries, but for years after-
wards slowly runs down the picture, forming drops, like the condensation
of damp in the air on a cold waU.

192 The Graphic Arts.

and has a dull chilled surface when dry. Cappagh brown is
fine in hue and dries well, but if used thickly anywhere it shriv-
els. The best browns for practical use in oil monochrome are
the two umbers. Raw umber is a delicate citrine-brown earth
of the most agreeable tone but of moderate power, and it may
be used alone where great force is not particularly required.
Burnt umber is very powerful, but hot, and it has entirely lost
the delicate beauty of the natural earth. It may be used with
great advantage in monochromes which are intended to be vig-
orous rather than pleasing.

The difficulty in painting transparent oil monochromes is that
if oil is really used the work does not hold well in pale tones,
but runs or flows upon the canvas, so that it is impossible to
preserve that appearance of a decided and firm touch which is
one of the best qualities of water monochrome ; indeed, it is
not too much to say that any skilled master of water mono-
chrome would consider oil a very inferior medium, and with
good reason ; I mean if it were really oil, and if the mono-
chrome were transparent

The word * oil * has, however, in the technical language of
painting, a very comprehensive signification. It is supposed to
include all varnishes and mediums with which colours ground
in oil can be easily mixed. The umbers, ground in oil, may be
used in monochrome with varnish, and this is the right way to
employ them when transparent work is intended. Even with
varnish, or with the thickest jellies known as * megilps,' oil
monochromes are still inferior to water drawings in freshness
and decision. They are also inferior in speed, for if you wait
until a coat of transparent painting is dry enough to work upon
again there is some delay, and if you do not wait the second
painting cannot retain sharp edges, but will melt into the first.
The only compensation for these inferiorities is the superior
strength of oil, such a colour as burnt umber, in varnish, being
powerful to a degree which cannot be rivalled by sepia or Indian
ink. I have had occasion several times already to warn the

Oil Monochrome. ^ 193

reader against attaching tcx) much importance to mere strength
of dark material in art, since so much beauty and truth can be
got out of weaker materials. The comparative weakness of
charcoal and Indian ink is not, let me repeat, a serious defect
from the artistic point of view, neither is the strength of burnt
umber in varnish a force to be too ardently desired, or purchased
at a very high price.

Although there are examples of transparent oil or varnish
monochrome which show great delicacy, and convey a great
deal of truth, this kind of monochrome, at the best, is inferior
to sepia skilfully used with water. The dead surface of water
painting on paper is in itself a substantial advantage, and be-
sides this the surface of the paper itself, in its combination with
the pigment, may be made an important aid to texture. I once
painted a series of transparent oil monochromes on paper not
otherwise prepared than by a good sizing, the first sketch being
made with* pen and ink. The result was not unsatisfactory, ex-
cept that the sketch, which was in lines, would have better har-
monised with the shading if it had been done with the brush,
and with water-colour burnt umber from a tube, rather heavily
loaded in some parts and dragged so as to give a broken line
in others. The pen line is too hard and mechanical to be
painted upon unless it is wholly concealed. In some slight and
light transparent monochromes a careful pencil line may be seen
beneath the raw umber glaze ; there is much less harm in this
than in hard pen-work.

Many transparent oil monochromes are touched upon more
or less extensively with opaque colour in the lights, the shades
being left transparent. There is nothing to be said against this,
provided that the tone of the opaque colour is made to harmo-
nise well with the transparent pigment, so that the work may
still be truly a monochrome. Much caution is required for this,
and care must be taken not to mix white with the raw umber or
whatever else is used for the transparent monochrome, for so
socMi as this is done there is a certainty of producing a new set

194 • ^^^ Graphic Arts,

of tones, which are sure to look discordant We cannot insist
too strongly on the doctrine that a raonochrome, though it pro-
fesses to have nothing to do with colour, is in fact just as much
subject to the laws of chromatic harmony as a coloured picture ;
that there are solecisms in tints as there are in words ; and that
offences of this kind in monochromes are sure to be felt by
persons of naturally refined taste, even though they may not be
able to explain exactly in what the offence consists.

I have no doubt that it is a reason of this kind which has
made oil monochromes so much less popular than water draw-
ings in sepia, and so much less frequently produced. If the
reader reflects a little he can hardly fail to be struck with the
curious fact that, although painters in oil are very numerous^
oil monochromes (or what are called grisailles) are not by any
means largely produced ; whilst in the past, when artists made
drawings washed in water-brown by thousands, they seldom
painted jnonochromes, except with the intention of hiding them
beneath scumblings and glazings of full and various colour.
This is the more curious and remarkable that we so frequentiy
hear people complaining, and so oflen complain ourselves, with
perfect justice, of the offensive crudity of much that is called
' colour,' and which is no more colour, in any true sense, than
the noise of the streets is music. It would seem, then, that as
our oil-painters seldom colour well enough to satisfy either their
critics or themselves, those amongst them who have no natural
gift for colour would do well to abandon the pursuit of it, and
pamt courageously in grisailU, just as writers who find they
are not poets take contentedly to plain prose. Unfortunately
for this proposal, the painters know that even bad colour is
more saleable than oil monochrome. Why is this? The pub-
lic does not object to black and white in other arts, such as
engraving, etching, charcoal, and sepia drawing. Why does it
object to oil monochromes ?

Transparent monochromes are not objectionable for their tint,
but they are thin, they have not the solidity of oil-paipting ; the

Oil Monochrome, 19S

•

lights and half-lights, instead of being substantial, are thinner
than the shades, and the darkest shades are the thickest in
pigment. This kind of painting can never be quite satisfactory
for these reasons, but it has the additional defect of poor tex-
ture. No painter can ever get great variety of texture in trans-
parent colour alone.

Opaque monochromes, glazed with transparent brown, and
scumbled with semi-transparent brown just as if they were
complete pictures, have not these deficiencies. They have all
the technical merits of oil-painting except colour. Strong,
substantial relief, vigorous and truthful texture, effective manual
1 expression with the brush, belong to opaque monochrome, as
they do to complete oil-painting ; whilst in range of light and
dark,^2tnd in all technical facilities of alteration and correction,
the twQ alte are precisely alike. The one objection — there is
but one — to opaque oil monochrome is that its scale of colour,
for \X has coldur, is not a true chromatic sequence.

To understand this thoroughly, the reader should nSake ex-
periments with some colour and white, both ground in oil. I
will take vermilion, as an extreme instance. Let us try to
make a scale, of which vermilion shall be the lowest bass and
white the highest treble. To get the intermediate notes you
mix white with your vermilion, but pray observe the disastrous
consequences 1 The mixture does not give you lighter ver-
milion, as it ought to do for a true chromatic scale; 'it gives
you something lighter, but the thing is no longer vermilion —
the note may be true in light and shade, but it is false in colour.
And now observe that the falsity, once admitted, does not even
remain in the same proportion, but constantly alters its propor-
tions. Vermilion with a little white and vermilion with much
white are not merely different in light and dark, they are differ-
ent chromatically — they seem as if they belonged to different
scales of colour. Every landscape-painter knows that in paint-
ing fiery sunsets the great difficulty is to avoid falsifying the
colour of the flame, whilst trying to imitate its light.

igS The Graphic Arts.

I know that vermilion is an extreme instance, because it is a
colour which alters remarkably in chromatic quality when it is
mixed with white. Yellows do not alter so much. A Imght
yellow is still a bright yellow, only paler, when white is added
to it, but the danger is in the transformations of those colours
which might possibly be used for monochrome. Vandyke
brown and burnt umber produce a series of false and un-
pleasant notes with white. The white seems to reveal in them,
as marriage does in bad-tempered persons, possibilities of disa-
greeableness which were unsuspected when they were alone.
Vandyke brown and white look like a mixture of chalk, mud,
and the lees of wine ; they have no apparent relation to the
'fine, deep, semi-transparent brown colour,' which bears the
name of the illustrious artist who loved it. Burnt umber, so
rich in its pure state, is so dirty with white that the mixture
spoils the colour of every picture where it is admitted. The
greys produced by ivory black and white are less disagreeable,
but they are not neutral, nor are they a consistent continuation
of the pigment itself in lighter shades. They are not lighter
blacky but something else. The greys of black lead, ground in
oil, and mixed with white, are much nearer in quality to the
black lead itself, and much pleasanter, being less ghastly, but
plumbago is not dark enough for the lowest notes.

The most available pigment for opaque oil monochromes is
raw umber. It is not very disagreeable in mixture with white,
and the discordance between the tints in mixture is not very
striking. Nevertheless an opaque monochrome, painted simply
in raw umber and white, can never charm the eye, however
good in drawing, and light and shade. At the best it looks
crude and cold. To remedy this it may be treated by glazing
and scumbling like a picture in complete colour, but with a
very limited palette composed of raw umber, raw sienna, burnt
umber, and white. I have found in practice (having painted
a good many oil monochromes) that a treatment of this kind,
when the painting approached its finish, was an effectual remedy

Oil Monochrome. 197

against the rawness and opacity of the simple umber and white.
Raw sienna was necessary chiefly in scumbles in the lights where
it corrected the coldness of raw umber, and burnt umber was
used transparently in the darks. Notwithstanding the chromatic
differences between these pigments they harmonised fairly well,
so as to be apparently a true monochrome. I am convinced
that if opaque oil monochrome is to be produced in a satisfactory
manner at all it must be by some compromise of this kind.

It is to be regretted that complete oil monochrome, like that
just described, with solid under-colour and rich glazing, scum-
bling, and retouching, should not be more practised by young
oil-painters, as it would afford for them the same convenient
technical introduction to the diflficulties of painting that sepia
does for painters in water-colour.

Complete oil monochrome would be easier for amateurs than
sepia and Indian ink, as it affords plenty of time for deliberation.
It has also the advantage that it can be practised on any scale ;
whereas charcoal is not convenient on a very small scale, nor
water-colour on a very large one.

For reasons which will be given at length elsewhere, oil
monochrome is not so good as sepia with water for purposes
of photographic reproduction. This is to be regretted ; but I
have no doubt of the fact, having ascertained it by many very
careful experiments on rather a large scale. All that can be
said in favour of oil monochrome is that it is much better for
photographic purposes than coloured painting in the same me-
dium, and that a copy in oil monochrome from an oil picture
may come nearer to its textiure than a copy in any other ma-
terial

There is a kind of oil monochrome quite distinct from picture-
painting, and that is decorative camaieu.* In this, the colours
employed are generally brighter and prettier in themselves than

♦ According to Littr^, camaieu is derived from the base-Latin word
camahaius; camahutus^ from the base-Latin camaeus^ onyx.

198 The Graphic Arts.

the dull earths of picturesque monochrome. They may also be
selected with an eye to successful mixture with white. In a
decorative panel, a figure with the landscape behind it may be
painted all in rose colour or all in blue, like painting on a
porcelain vase or a tile. In these camaieus the choice of hue
is perfectiy free, except that it must bear reference to the
decorative surroundings, so that you may paint a blue lady or
a pink tree if you like, provided that the blue lady has a blue
background and the pink tree a pink figure in its own panel.
Notwithstanding this liberty, however, there are certain con-
siderations which make it wiser to choose one colour than
another.

Camaieus seem to be an ingenious means for getting over a
certain difficulty. A definite colour may be wanted for decora-
tive reasons, and yet at the same time you may wish for a form
of some interest and significance. The difficulty of reconciling
the two is got over by a simple postulate : * Let it be granted
that I may paint a world all in rose colour;' to which our
readily accommodating imagination at once replies, *By all
means, paint away; let it be rose colour, or mauve, or ma-
genta, or whatever you please.* So the artist sets to work with
liberty to draw as delicately and beautifuUy as he can, but he is
to use only one colour, which may be as unnatural as he likes.
It is generally understood that the drawing in camaieus should
be very careful and elegant, and idealised so as to be in harmony
with the conventional colour.

Comparison of Oil Monochrome with Nature, — Transparent
oil monochrome is not strong in the representation of direct
light on objects, nor does it often give their modelling power-
folly, nor their texture. It gives delicate shadows truly.

Opaque oil monochrome, in combination with glazing and
scumbling, like complete oil-painting in everything but colour,
is capable of the closest imitation of nature except in hue. It
permits the most complete modelling, the most perfect render-

Oil Monochrome, 199

ing of light and shade, the most accurate translation of local
colour into light and dark, that are possible in the graphic arts.
It allows also the most powerful imitation, or suggestion, of
natural textiures, and every variety of surface, whilst it gives
the full scale of transition by every intermediate degree from
the densest opacity to the most lucid transparence. With these
powers, the whole of nature, whether picturesque or severe, is
open to the workman in this art, if only he can renounce colour,
and yet it is less practised in working from nature than most of
the arts which are mentioned in this volume. The reason for
this has already been stated. It is the chromatic solecisms
which occur in opaque oil monochrome from the mixture of
the dark pigments with white, and which can only be overcome
by careftilly avoiding the pigments that ally themselves badly
with white, and by having recourse to certain artifices by which
crudity and discrepancy may be avoided or concealed.

200 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER XVIIL

PASTEL.

SOME qualities in the Graphic Arts are pleasing or dis-
pleasing in themselves, independently of their fidelity to
nature. Hardness is unpopular in itself, softness is popular ;
the first answers to dogmatism and decision in conversation,
which nobody quite likes, though it may be the affirmation
of pure truth \ the second answers to flattering acquiescence,
or to affirmation of the very gentlest and mildest kind, which
is incomparably more pleasing to all of us.

On this principle pastel ought to be the most popular of all
the forms of drawing, for it is like velvet to the eye. It
is, indeed, always sure to please when executed with ability,
but it is not very much followed, in comparison with water-
colour, because it cannot be preserved without great care,
and has a reputation for being more fugitive than it really is.
Safe only iHider glass, and at some distance from the glass,
safe even there only on condition that the room is free from
damp, a pastel drawing is not a very convenient thing to
keep. It is nothing but dry, coloured powder on paper with
a soft surface. Of all the graphic arts it has the most deli-
cate constitution —

* Ainsi de la beaut^
Le pastel a Teclat et la fragility.'

The charm and effeminate softness which distinguish so
many pastels have also produced an impression, a very
erroneous yet a very natural impression, that the art is in-

Pastel, 201

capable of manly and vigorous delineation. Pastel fs more
durable than people think, and it is, or may be, a more firm
and masculine art than a careless world imagines. There is
no reason why a pastel, preser\'ed under glass in a rich man's
warmed and ventilated room, should not last for many gen-
erations. The poet just quoted has said prettily that pastel
has the iciat and the fragility of beauty ; he was thinking, no
doubt, that as beauty may be at any time disfigured by acci-
dent or disease, so the pastel powder may be displaced by
the touch of a feather, and the graceful form, the brilliant
colour, effaced and obliterated for ever. Still it is true, how-
ever sad, that this delicate powder will far outlast the bloom
of that natural beauty which it represents. Where are the
pretty marchionesses who sat to Latour ? Ou sont les neiges
tPanfan f

The principle of pastel is that the colours, when on the
paper, are in a state of dry powder, most of which is slightly
adherent. In painting of different kinds the powder is held
together by some medium. Pastel is therefore exactly the
same thing as painting, minus the medium.

In all kinds of painting, even in water-col oiir, the neces-
sity for waiting until the paint has dried is a cause of delay.
The dry processes of charcoal and pastel economise the time
lost in these delays ; they are consequently more rapid than
any of the wet procesSfes. My attention was first drawn to
pastel in a practical way, when, on looking through the port-
folio of a well-known landscape-painter, I found a collection
of landscape effects, of the kind which in nature last five
minutes, or less ; and he told me that he had been able to get
the relations of colour . either directly from nature itself or
from the most fresh and immediate recollection. . Unimpeded
by the necessity for waiting till pigments dried, he could, by
the help of pastel, finish a work in colour in one short sitting.
Eugbne Delacroix used pastel frequently for rapid notes of
colour, and he had a peculiar gift for setting down chromatic

202 The Graphic Arts.

relations rapidly. It can hardly be necessary to observe that
no amount of facility offered by the materials will enable
anybody but a colourist to get these relations even in the
slightest sketch. Still, when the colour faculty is there, it is
an immense convenience to have a process which goes on
without interruption.

Pastel answers in colour to soft chalk or charcoal in mono-
chrome, just as water-colour answers to sepia, and oil-colour
to'grisaille. The proper technical preparation for pastel is,
consequently, a training in chalk or charcoal. The transition
from that to colour involves only the chromatic difficulty,
there is no new manual difficulty to be overcome.

The colours used are in the form of cylinders, about two
inches long and three-eighths of an inch in diameter. They
are divided into two classes — soft and hard ; and sometimes
into three — soft, hard, and intermediary — kept in separate
boxes.

The preparation of pastels is extremely artificial, and dif-
fers with the colours employed. Pipeclay and chalk are mixed
with the colouring substances, and the molecules are held
together by a little mucilage, which is varied according to
circumstances. In soft pastels they cohere just sufficiently
to be laid on the paper as broad shades, in hard pastels
they cohere so as to be applicable in lines. Many of the
colours used in water and oil have to be rejected from
the list of pastels, but this is not of the slightest conse-
quence practically, as complete colour can be got without
them.

Pastels are not usually prepared, like oil and water colour,
an pure pigments, but in tints — so that a box is like a palette
set carefully and elaborately with fifty or sixty hues ready to
hand. The object of this is to save the artist a good deal of
mixing, which is not so convenient in pastel as in painting.
I may, however, be permitted to observe that ready-made
tints, however numerous, scarcely ever supply the exact one

Pastel. 203

that the artist happens to require \ so that mixing is to some
extent inevitable, and in pastel it seems awkward to manage,
when one has been accustomed to the practical readiness
of oil.

The papers used are various, but it appears to be under-
stood by artists that their surface should never be too hard
and smooth, but should have a sufficiently free fibre to catch
and hold the powder. When the paper does not supply this
of itself, care is taken to prepare it by wetting and brushing,
which in some degree detaches the fibre. The same thing is
done to hard papers for plate-printing.

Pastels may be done on paper of any tint that the artist
prefers, but cool greys seem to be the most satisfactory.
White papers are bright, but they do not sustain the tones,
which are apt to look thin and unsound unless very carefully
laid. It must be remembered that pastel does not answer to
transparent painting, like washed water-colour, but to opaque
painting, like body-colour, so that there is no real necessity
for brightness in the paper, as it can be given by the pastels
themselves.

To make the paper catch and retain pastel more easily, to
give it more of what is called * tooth,* it is often prepared with
a surface of adherent pumice-powder, or fine sand, or saw-
dust, to which the pastel clings. Canvas is used sometimes,
and upon this the artist first lays a coat of parchment-size, on
which he blows fine marble and pumice-powder, which remains
fixed after the size is dry, and is then rubbed over with
pumice-stone to make it even. A certain roughness still
remains to catch the pastel.

When a variety of texture is not required, the pastel tints
may be rubbed into the paper either with a stump or with the
finger,* and if the paper has been well selected it will retain
the pastel so well that the drawings may be kept in a portfolio

* The palm of the hand is used for large spaces, when the drawing it
on a considerable scale.

204 The Graphic Arts,

without being fixed, and without any special protection.* It
is easy, however, to give them some protection by sunk
mounts.

Rubbed tints of this kind are often used as the general
beginning or ground-work of a pastel, and on these the work
is continued and finished in decided touches for accent and
texture, which of course are left quite undisturbed, as they are
the life and soul of the performance.

When pastel has been first applied to the paper, and is not
yet rubbed in, it may be removed with a badger-hair brush,
used lightly as a duster, the drawing being inclined forward,
so that the dust may not fall on the parts of the work which
are to be preserved.

Rules for order in working are not of much use in any art,
as no artist ever pays attention to them for any length of time
together, but it may often be a convenience to begin by rub-
bing in the middle tint, then add the darks, and finally put on
the lights. If any student wishes to be methodical he can
scarcely choose a more rational method than this, for it is
founded upon the simplest and most orderly analysis, and is
applicable to everything. In by far the greater number of
subjects which are interpreted in full colour, middle tint
largely predominates — high lights and low darks being as
exceptional as bright intelligence and extreme dulness in
mankind.

Pastel is often used with something else for a basis. Latour
and his contemporaries are said to have prepared their pastels
with sanguine and black chalk,t — the sanguine for the warm
shadows, and the chalk for those parts of the fiesh in which a

• I have pastel studies of skies which have been kept quite carelessly
for twenty years, and do not seem the worse for friction ; at any rate they
still answer their purpose, but they are mere frottis for broad relations of
tint. If done by a good colourist, such things would be very valuable to
a landscape-painter.

t In Goupirs treatise on Pastel, page 42. I owe some other bits of
information to this little work..

Pastel. 205

bluish tint is perceptible. I need hardly observe that both
were used with much lightness and delicacy. My authority
says that no blue will replace the cool tone given by a ground-
work of black.

When we come to painting we shall see that many artists
of eminence have painted upon monochromes for the conven-
ience of finding drawing and light and shade ready to hand.
Precisely the same thing has been done in pastel. We shall
find, as we proceed further in our comparison of the graphic
arts, that the same principles and methods are constantly
recurring in new applications. Colour upon monochrome is ^
managed in pastel by first making a charcoal drawing and fix-
ing it, the pastel being then worked upon that. The general
temper of charcoal and pastel is so very nearly the same that
the union of them in one work is not unnatural. The greys
of charcoal are of a quality so nearly neutral that they need
not harm the colour by showing through. The charcoal
should be done on white paper, as its own greys darken the
paper sufficiently to sustain the pastel.

It is rather to be regretted that there is not yet in our Na-
tional Gallery a room given entirely to pastel. In a perfect
gallery all the graphic arts which have been practised by emi-
nent men ought to be represented, but oil-painting has over-
powered the other arts, which do not receive a fair share of
consideration. Pastel is quite an artist's art — I mean that it
is an art which offers perfect facility for artistic expression —
for the expression of an artist's knowledge and sentiment.
The plain truth is that it is simply dry painting. We may be ^
asked why such an art should be encouraged at all when oil-
painting can express everything in a safer form. The answer
is, that some artists may find pastel more suitable to their
genius, and that all sound varieties of art ought to be encour-
aged, because variety is a refreshment to all of us. There is
a small but admirable collection of pastels in the Louvre,
enough to serve as examples. Two of the best are the por-

2o6 The Graphic Arts.

traits of Chardin and his wife, done by him at the age of sev-
enty-six, and full of vivacity. One of them has been engraved
in mezzotint for this book,* and as mezzotint may be made
to imitate a good deal of the quality of pastel, the engraving
is very like the original, but it lacks, of course, the life-giving
carnations and the advantage of the natural scale. Poor
Chardin, who had lived to be eighty, and laboured to the last,t
was so completely forgotten twenty years after his death that
this pastel was sold in 1810 for less than one pound sterling.
In 1839 he had risen in the market, as this portrait and an-
other of himself nearly reached six pounds, taken together. X
Chardin had startling vigour, even in p>astel, which he took,
up late in life, but he bad not the charm and finish of Latour,
nor his marvellous technical accomplishment. In Latour you
have the master of the special pastel craft, and a wonderful
craft it was, in his hands, admirably adapted to his subjects,
to whom it lent a lightness and elegance which were the ideal-
isation of their own. The courtly graces of the eighteenth
century — so remote from us now that they seem thirty gener-
ations back instead of three — the splendours of an aristocracy
nearly at the end of its power, but still retaining a style quite
pure from democratic manners, found in this art of Latour a
record of itself so delicate that it seems as if the very air of
the court were preserved in the tinted dust of his pastels.

All things considered, I suppose that the portrait of Ma-
dame de Pompadour, by Latour, now in the Louvre, is the
most complete manifestation of the art of pastel which exists;
but I am inclined to think that the best use of pastel is not
in wonderful, highly-finished performances, but in excellent
sketches and studies. Several other arts are in this position.
The pen-drawings, and even the etchings, which seem to ex-

* See the chapter on Mezzotint Engraving.

t He died in December, 1779, having exhibited in the Salon of the same
year.

X The exact prices were 24fr. and I42fr.

Pastel. 207

press best the genius of their arts, are not laborious, highly-
finished performances, but the animated and often rapid
records of intelligent observation. There is a sketch in the
Louvre by Prud'hon, a portrait of * Mademoiselle Mayer/ on
coarse paper, which shows plainly what great sketching power
may work through pastel. The power of colouring rapidly
like that, in a dry process, would certainly be of the greatest
use to painters, and when the sketches had served the pur-
pose of the artists they would be greatly valued by intelli-
gent collectors. The speed of the process might place good
work in colour within easy reach of collectors of moderate
fortune.*

Of all processes in colour, pastel seems to be the most ac-
cessible to amateurs. It allows of endless correction, it does
not hurry the artist like water-colour, and it may be continued
or interrupted at any time, which cannot be said of oil. Be-
sides this, the colours of pastel are pleasanter in themselves
than oil and water-colour, and do not require so much mas- -J
tery to make them agreeable. When full colour is not at- v
tempted, a drawing may be pleasantly tinted in pastel or the
colour of an intended painting may be indicated by touches
of pastel on a cartoon. There is an instance of this in the
Louvre — a cartoon portrait by Lionardo in black stone and
sanguine with indications of colour in pastel, not powerful,
but enough to go by.

Comparison of Pastel with Nature, — The strongest advo-
cates of pastel lay stress on the dulness of its surface, which
is a great advantage in the representation of nature, as a pastel
can be seen like a fresco from any point, and your mind is
not called back to the material by a glistening of paint or
rarnish. This is quite true, but it is only true of pastels un-
protected by glass, for glass is far worse than any varnish, as

• The portrait of * Mademoiselle Mayer * was bought by the Louvre
for less than 6/., and another fine pastel study by Prud'hon for 2/.

2o8 The Graphic Arts.

it reflects objects far better. The pictures behind plate-glass
in the National Gallery cannot be completely seen from any
point of view whatever; what we see is a confusion between
the painting and the reflected costumes of the visitors.

A surprising degree of vivid imitation can be attained in
pastel, which in skilful hands rivals painting in this power,
but its best employment is in securing accurate notes of
colour relations in spaces. The natural morbidezza of pas-
tel, and its fine aerial quality, make it admirably adapted for
studies of skies. The ease with which its tints are melted
into each other makes it extremely available for studies of
water. Flesh may be rendered in pastel with the most life-
like truth of colour, but there is a risk of chalkiness which
can only be avoided by intentional vigour of tone.

On the whole it may be truly said that pastel is better and
safer for rather large spaces of colour than for minute detail,
which is not in the natural genius of the art, though it may
be attainable with labour. Pastel is a colourist's art, and its
most precious work is the recording of lovely colour-combi-
nations in a sort of vague visible music without too much
insistence on what is positive, material, and tangible.

Tempera. 209

CHAPTER XIX.

TEMPERA.

A GREAT practical hindrance to the general knowledge
of tempera is, that paintings so executed are often var-
nished, and then they look like paintings in oil, and commonly
pass for such. They are recognised by experts on account of
a certain sharpness, which an oil-painter might attain if he
tried for it, but which, as a matter of fact, is rare in oil and
invariably found in tempera.

Instead of saying over again in other words what Sir Charles
Eastlake said in explanation of the word 'tempera,* I prefer
to make a quotation from his Materials for a History of Oil
Painting,

* Before entering on this subject,* it may be necessary to
explain the different meanings of the word tempera^ applied
to more or less liquid compositions. First, it is used in the
general sense of mixture, in accordance with the import of
the classic expression " temperare " (thus Pliny, " temperare
unguentum "). In this widest application the Italian substan-
tive " tempera " means any more or less fluid medium with
which pigments may be mixed, including even oil.f Hence

* English and German tempera.

t Buttura, in his Italian dictionary, defines tempera as ogni liquore^ o
sia collUf 0 chiara d^uovoy con che i pittori liquefanno i colori ; he only men-
tions the white of egg, but tells us that any diluent comes within the
meaning of the word. It is, however, restricted by usage to egg or size
painting; and especially, as Sir Charles Eastlake says above, to painting
in which the yolk of egg is employed.

14

2IO The Graphic Arts.

Vasari says, " 1 'olio che h la tempera loro." Secondly, in a
less general sense, the term represents a glutinous, as distin-
guished from an unctuous or oily, medium ; and thus compre-
hends t,gg^ size, and gums ; or, in a more general Expression,
binding substances originally soluble in water. Lastly, in its
most restricted and proper acceptation, it means a vehicle in
which yolk of ^^g is a chief ingredient ; the varieties being,
yolk of ^^ mixed in equal quantities with the colour ; yolk
and white of ^g'g beaten together, and diluted with the milky
juice expressed from the shoots of the fig-tree ; and the yolk
alone so diluted. These last-named vehicles were the most
commonly used by the painters of the South of Europe, before
the invention and improvement of oil-painting. They are de-
scribed by the chief Italian writers on art, and by those who
have followed them. Sandrart intimates that tempera was still
employed in his time, but observes that it was only fit for dry
situations.'

The word tempera is also sometimes used for size-painting,
in which there is no ^^^^ but simply some kind of thin glue.
Coarse work of this kind is done in large quantities for the-
atrical purposes, and for the cheap decoration of houses and
churches ; but it is not worth our while to go into the exami-
nation of size-painting minutely here as the principles of it
are exactly the same as those of egg tempera applied to com-
mon purposes.

Northern artists had to do without the fig-tree juice, which
they might replace with vinegar. Eastlake believed that the
German and English artists added honey to their tempera
vehicle to retard its drying, just as honey is mixed with our
modem moist water-colours by the colourmakers. A manu-
script of the fifteenth century in the library at Strasbourg,
quoted by Eastlake, contains a clear description of the
preparation of parchment size, mixed with vinegar, for size-
painting ; and the writer adds, that when it is used it should
be mixed with water, * and likewise much honey with them.

Tempera, 2 1 1

Warm the composition a little, and immix the honey thor-
oughly with the s\z^^ Tlie MS. then goes on to explain how
paintings so executed may afterwards be varnished for their
preservation.

Water is not, strictly speaking, the medium of tempera
painting, but it is the diluent of the naedium, and conse-
quently tempera may be not unfairly regarded as a sort of
wafcer-coiour painting, for even in ordinary water-colour it
often happens that water is not employed alone. In the first
place, di6 powder colours are not formed into cakes or pig-
ments with water only, for gums are add^d ; and, in the case
of motst water-colours, hooey is also added, as we have just
seen. Besides this, some water-colour painters use a wax
medium, made so as to be soluble in water. Tempera Is, in
fact, body-colour with an ^g^ medium and a watery diluent.

It is not necessary, with regard to the purpose of this vol-
ume, to enter into any minute inquiries into the nature of the
colours employed by the old tempera painters, as this book
does not profess to be a history of art, but only offers such
details as may be of practical use now and in the future. We
may take it for granted, on account of the affinity of the pro-
cesses, that all pigments which are good for use in water
must be available for tempera, if only we bear in mind that
tempera is an opaque process- The colours should be pro-
cured in powder and mixed with egg by the artist himself on
a slab of ground glass with a muUen

Notwithstanding this general availableness of pigments, it
must be remembered that there is colouring matter in yolk of
^gg which affects all colours as a yellow varnish in oil-paint-
ing affects them, consequently yellows will be deepened, reds
turned a little in the direction of orange, and blues greened.
The influence of yolk of egg on warm colours is not very in-
jurious, but it is serious on cold ones. Borghini, as quoted
by Mrs. Merrifield, recommends the mixture of blue with a
medium of gum or parchmexit size to avoid greening.

212 The Graphic Arts,

Tempera is durable when it has been managed prudently
and kept in favourable situations, but it is very much exposed
to cracking and peeling when too much ^gg or size has been
employed. William Dyce, in his evidence before the Select
Committee of the Fine Arts (1841), expressed the belief that
the cause of peeling was some action of heat and moisture,
or that the size might have been too strong.

Since the general use of oil-painting, tempera has ceased to
be used for pictures, but it may still be of occasional use for
decorative purposes, though even for these it is generally
superseded by other -processes. It has therefore very little
importance as a living art, and would scarcely deserve notice
now if it were not for its historical rank. The reader may
find many excellent examples of early tempera painting, var-
nished, in our own National Gallery. They are generally bril-
liant in colour and very clear and precise in form ; indeed,
the quaint charm of these works is due in a great measure to
ignorance of visual effect which led the artists to combine
bright colouring with hard, though delicate, linear drawing in
the same works, consequently they have a union of attractions
which, if optical effect were studied, would be incompatible.
Those artists gave, in fact, more delineation and purer colours
together than could be combined in an advanced state of art.
The absence of aerial perspective, which we excuse in them^
but which we do not excuse in our own contemporaries, en-
abled them to make their work more decorative, and so all the
more in accordance with the natural sharpness of the process.

There are two admirable portraits by Piero della Francesca
in the National Gallery — one of Isotta da Rimini, the other
of some unknown lady — in which the artist reached the per-
fection of the primitive method. They have a clearness of
definition like that of severe old engraving, and we have had
that of Isotta engraved for this volume in the old manner.
The painter had attained the utmost manual skill in the use
of the brush ; he evidently delighted, as Giotto did, in the

Tempera. 213

deftness with which he used its point in drawing hair, for Ex-
ample, in its curves and thin individual hairs ; not a learned
nor an artistic manner of representing it, but one admirably
adapted to display the talent of a craftsman. So the rich
dress, with its abundant jewellery, offered an excellent oppor-
tunity for the sharp, clear touching of detail congenial to the
process and to the taste of the fifteenth century. The pro-
file of the unknown lady is very beautiful, and followed out
in all its delicacy with all the care of a lover of the line. The
colour of the dress has evidently gone, except in the dark
green floral ornament which shows now very strongly upon it.

The same principle of sharp delineation is found in the
tempera of the northern schools. In the very animated por-
trait by Albert Diirer, in the Louvre, of an old man with a
parchment-coloured face and a red cap, the grey eyebrows
are painted literally hair by hair. The grey beard under the
throat is more massed only because less finished ; it is not
really worked out in massing as Velasquez would have done
it. There are two portraits, by Mabuse, one of an ecclesias-
tic in black with hands joined in prayer, and a lively intelli-
gent face, the other of Jehan Carondelet, both remarkable
for that excessive clearness which is the tendency of tempera.
In the Carondelet the hairs are so many fine lines with the
point of the smallest brush, and the whole conception of the
painting is linear.

Tempera has often been used for large cartoons, such as
. those which bear the name of Raphael at South Kensington
and those of Giulio Romano in the Louvre. As the subject
of this book is not the imaginative but the technical side of
art, it is not our present business to enter into an examina-
tion of the cartoons as inventions of the painters* minds.
Such a study would require a long chapter to itself ; but it
may be observed here that the imposing mental powers of
Raphael, and especially the majesty of some of his figures,
have led many people to overrate the technical merits of the

2i4 The Graphic Arts,

cartoons. In the first place, we ought not to forget that they
were not done for themselves, but only to serve as guides for
tapestry weavers, who cut them into long strips for their own
convenience ; and, again, although Raphael composed them,
they were in great part executed by his pupils, especially by
Francesco Penni. Subsequent repaintings and restorations
have not improved them ; but, whatever may be their history,
the fact that there is a great deal of crude painting and bad
colour in them is undeniable. If technical merits were alone
to be considered I should greatly prefer the cartoons of Giulio
Romano, Pennies brother pupil. It seems to me that such
a work as the * Triumph ' in the Louvre * is the perfection of a
tempera cartoon. It is highly decorative, and there is no at-
tempt in it to go beyond the natural limits of tempera. The
colour, I need hardly say, is not to be compared in any way
with that of a fully-modelled and well-blended piece of oil-
painting by Titian or Correggio. It has no such pretension ;
it is nothing but a decorative arrangement of nearly flat
colours on a large scale. Take, for example, the distribution
of red, in the line of bright red fringe under the chariot, the
red traces and bridles of the horses, the red buskins and
mantle of the soldier on horseback to the extreme right ; the
distribution of blues, in the blue distance, the king's breeches,
and the background of the bas-relief on the chariot ; the dis-
tribution of yellows, in the throne, the harness, the helmet,
and many other things. All these colours are flat, or nearly
so, and they are distributed for decoration, not for chromatic
melody. The drawing is everywhere clearly defined, to which
tempera invites an artist by a natural clearness and hardness
of outline. The chariot in the * Triumph' is full of sharp
decorative drawing. The colouring has very little pretension
to truth, it is often very positively untrue, especially in coarse
red carnations, but it is not inharmonious, considering the
general scheme.

* No. 263 in the collection.

Tempera. 215

Comparison of Tempera with Nature, — The natural ten-
dency of tempera is towards flatness, and therefore against
free modelling, and so far against natural truth, or, rather (to
state the case more accurately), it comes short of the com-
plete truth. Flatness is scarcely to be considered a falsehoocj
in art, though natural objects rarely appear flat ; it is rather a
condition of imperfect development, just as delicate tinting,
in colour, is not properly to be called false or bad colour, but
only incomplete colour.

Sir Charles Eastlake examined the reasons for this flatness.
He said that with the egg-vehicle, undiluted, it was * difficult
to effect a union of tints in the more delicately modelled parts
of a work — for instance, in the flesh — without covering the
surface with lines in the manner of a drawing.' Neverthe-
less, the Rhenish tempera painters gave modelling in their
work, and it has been believed that they had some means of
retarding the drying of the colours so that they could blend
them, as colours in oil are blended.

Tempera is naturally favourable to sharp and clear defini-
tion, so that most tempera paintings appear hard in their out-
lines, a condition not unfavourable to the conventionalism of
decorative work, but often contrary to the appearances of nature,
in which boundary lines are often very difficult to determine.

Tempera has the very great advantage of a dull surface, so
that large cartoons painted in it may be seen from any part of
the room where they are hung; but we have seen in the case
of pastel that this advar^Jage may be completely neutralised
by protecting the works with glass. The Raphael cartoons
are now a striking instance of this, for nobody can see them
properly.* Again, the advantage of a dull surface is entirely
lost when the tempera picture is varnished, as so many works
in tempera have been, for their preservation.

* I am not arguing for the removal of the glass, as it may be quite
right to plague ourselves patriotically that works of importance may be
kept for posterity, but one cannot help feeling the sacrifice.

2i6 The Graphic Arts,

All things considered, it does not appear that tempera is
likely to hold a high place in the future amongst the varieties
of painting. It is more likely to be employed for common
purposes than noble ones. The few artists who make car-
toons before beginning pictures may find tempera convenient,
though they generally only draw the cartoon, and make a
separate sketch of the colour arrangement, on a small scale,
in oil or water. For decorative wall paintings the artists of
the future will probably (and with reason) prefer some pro-
cess such as that called * spirit fresco,' which is likely to
resist damp better. The interest of tempera is therefore
chiefly historical. It once held a very important position in
the fine arts, so that the mere mention of the word recalls to
us many names which were great in the early days of art, and
which deserve still to be reverently remembered.

Fresco and its Substitutes. 217

CHAPTER XX.

FRESCO AND ITS SUBSTITUTES.

FRESCO is simply the art of painting on fresh plaster,
which dries with the colours and fixes them. The pig-
ments are either pure water-colours, used transparently, or else
colours mixed with water and lime, used in an opaque man-
ner. In pure fresco they are not mixed with any kind of
gum, as in what we commonly call water-colour, nor with any
kind of glue, size, albumen, gr yolk of egg, as in ordinary
distemper, or true tempera painting. Many kinds of mural
painting are inaccurately called fresco, either from simple
carelessness in the use of language or else from analogy —
the analogy having generally reference rather to the appear-
ance of the result attained than to the process of execution.
The reader will please to understand that in this volume the
names of processes are used in their strict sense, so that
whenever fresco is mentioned here true fresco is intended,
and not tempera nor gum-painting.

Before entering into the details of the fresco or fresh pro-
cess, it may be well to pause and consider what are the
reasons which have made mural painting a distinct branch of
the graphic arts. If you took a picture at random from the
walls of a modern exhibition, and glued the canvas to a wall
in a panel of plaster exactly the right size for it, the picture
would no more become what we call mural painting than a
man would become a statesman by simply getting into Parlia-
ment Mural painting, as all competent persons understand

21 8 The Graphic Arts.

it, is a special kind of art, the distinctive characteristic of
which is that it perfectly harmonises with architecture.

Here we come upon one of the many questions relating to
the fine arts which are extremely difficult to settle in a posi-
tive and dogmatic manner, but which it is impossible to
ignore. I do not pretend to give any set rule by which the
reader may easily determine for himself what kind of mural
painting is in harmony with architecture, but I wish to direct
his attention to compatibilities which are sometimes found,
and which give the permanent satisfaction derived from see-
ing congruous things together. Certain kinds of painting
join with architecture in producing one eflEect upon the mind ;
other kinds of painting either interfere with architecture, or
else are so completely outside of it that we cannot imagine
any connexion between them. By far the greater part of
our portable painting — our oil-pictures and water-colours in
frames — must be considered as having no reference to archi-
tecture whatever. Such painting, if worth hanging at all, at
once predominates over the building which contains it : the
building may be very rich and appropriate to the sheltered
treasures, but it is a mere casket, whilst the pictures are the
jewels. If the internal architectural features of the building
are too powerful and decided the paintings will suffer, but
the edifice will not be enriched. Suppose that the Queen's
collection of Dutch pictures were hung in the chapter-house
at York, what would be the consequences ? First, of course,
a shock of unsuitableness, because the building had been
erected for religious purposes, but beyond that a sense of
permanent conflict between the container and the contained.
The building would overwhelm the pictures, the pictures would
spoil the building. To enjoy any one of them you would
have to forget the * house of houses,' and think only of what
lay within a little gilded frame. You could never receive any
impression from the paintings and the architecture together.
It may seem idle to mention an incompatibility so obvious.

Fresco and its Substitutes* 219

for (however little judgment there may be in the world) it
would be hard to find anybody foolish enough to decorate a
Gothic building with Dutch pictures ; but why should they be
so incongruous ? It is not the difference of nationality, for
English pictures of familiar life and landscape would look
equally bad ; neither is it the Gothic character of the building,
for they would equally fail to adorn any truly noble and impos-
ing classic interior. The real reasons are the following.

In the first place, architecture of all kinds is an excessively
artificial product of human taste and intelligence ; it makes
some use of natural objects, but only after it has strictly con-
ventionalised them, whereas the kind of painting I have sup-
posed, the painting of familiar scenes and incidents, has a
far closer affinity to nature. There is too much of nature in
such painting for it to harmonise with any kind of architec-
ture, and this leads us to the first comprehensive law about
all mural painting, which is that it must not admit any really
imitative naturalism.

The next objection to Dutch pictures in the chapter-house
at York Minster is that the painting in them is so minute and
so elaborately finished that it cannot be properly seen at the
distance which is suitable for the architecture, so that the
two cannot, produce any combined effect upon the mind.
From this we may infer that mural painting should be suffi-
ciently large in scale and simple in execution for the parts of a
subject to be seen at the same distance as the principal details of
architecture.

Again, the Dutch pictures would all be varnished, and
shine in certain situations. The windows of the chapter-
house let light in from many points of the compass, so that
there would be reflections on the surface of the canvases,
enough to prevent them from being seen except from chosen
places. If the pictures were considered of chief importance,
many of the windows would have to be masked, which would
be destruction to the architecture. The beauty of architec-

220 The Graphic Arts*

ture is not to be sacrificed to painting; if the two are to
work harmoniously together, we want to find some rule by
which they may be happily reconciled, without injury to either.
Evidently then, one condition for this must be a dead surface
in all the painting. There must be no gloss on the painting any-
where.

We now come to another consideration. A wall, in archi-
tecture, is intended to be felt as a wall, and not as a hole ;
consequently, whatever may be the subject of the painting it
must be as much as possible on one plane. Landscapes with
far-stretching distances could only harmonise with architec-
ture on the supposition that they were a kind of window;
as real mural decoration they would always be bad. Figures
afford better material ; they can be placed in groups supposed to
be near the spectator.

We have now arrived at four principal conclusions about
mural painting, which may be recapitulated as follows : — It
must not be like nature in any imitative sense, but sufficiently
conventionalised to harmonise with architecture ; it must be
large in scale and simple in execution ; it must have a dead
surface ; figures are the best subjects for mural painting, and
they should be arranged on the same plane, or nearly so.

Fresco was popular in Italy for architectural painting be-
cause it had a dead surface, because it invited or required a
simple and broad method of work, and because it was rapid
and cheap. It was supposed to be very durable, and in some
situations fresco, which happened to be put on quite well-
prepared walls, has proved to be so.

Before going into technical details I may offer a few re-
marks on the value and importance of mural painting gener-
ally, whether by fresco or its substitutes, supposing, for the
present, that they are all convenient to the artist, and all
durable. We shall see in due time that these conditions are
seldom fulfilled, but we take it for granted, just now, that
they are so.

Fresco and its Substitutes, 221

It has often been argued that mural painting is superior as
a means of popular instruction to any other form of graphic
art, because it is so imposing in size as to command atten-
tion ; because it remains in the same place, which is generally
a public place ; and because it may be so closely associated
with architecture as to share the long existence of great
buildings. Unluckily, however, for the popular influence of
mural painting, it so happens that all its peculiar qualities —
all those qualities which distinguish it from portable painting
— are so many causes of unpopularity.

It is not, or it ought not to be, an imitative semblance of
nature, whereas most persons who have not seriously studied
the fine arts are attracted and repelled exactly in proportion
to the amount of imitation they can recognise in a work of art.
Downright imitation of things that they can understand and
touch seems to them so amusing and delightful that they can-
not imagine why any artist should ever refuse it or stop short
of it. Here, then, in the necessary conventionalism of good
mural painting, is a clear cause of unpopularity.

Secondly, in well-ordered mural painting the figures are
either on one plane or on two planes. They very seldom
recede from the spectator into distances, and there is, conse-
quently, something in the arrangement of them which is not
easy or natural. The uneducated spectator cannot explain the
reason for this, but you may be quite sure that he feels it.

One very essential quality in mural painting is deadness of
surface. Artists like it, but it is not at all a popular quality.
What people really like and enjoy is the shine of newly-applied
varnish. Again, the darks of fresco are not so forcible as the
darks of oil, yet there is nothing in art that uneducated people
like better than forcible darks, especially under a thick coat
of varnish.

The reader must not suppose that these are simple asser-
tions without authority ; they are the results of carefully ob-
serving the manifestations of popular preferences. When

222 The Graphic Arts.

Maclise was making his elaborate experiments in water-glass
before he undertook his large water-glass paintings at West-
minster, he soon found out that (to use his own words) * the
dry, unshining surface which the painter seeks with such pains-
taking, both in fresco and stereochromy, is a source of distaste
to the general public/ * So we find that the people call paint-
ings weak when they have not rich darks, and that they en-
thusiastically admire what they call the fine chiaroscuro of
well-blackened pictures and etchings, even when the blacken-
ing is a violation of all the laws of nature and of art. For
these and other reasons there is little hope that good mural
painting, such as that which go^s well with architecture, can
ever 'be really popular, and if it is not popular how is it to
instruct and influence the people? It may, however, be very
acceptable to cultivated persons, and many things are done
in a great nation simply because it is right that they should
be done, when there is very little chance of extensive benefits
resulting from them.

About the year 1840 the public authorities in England, and
Liiany of the artists, were in a state of mind most favourable
to the revival of mural painting amongst us. The authorities
had never before, in the history of this country, been so will-
ing to help graphic art of a public and imposing description,
the artists had never been so willing to learn a kind of art
that was entirely new to them. No one who carefully studies
the history of that great effort towards mural i>ainting which
was connected with the new Houses of Parliament can fail to
be struck with the admirable temper which animated all con-
cerned in it. It would have been impossible to set to work

* * So general,* says Maclise, * is the taste for the glossy surface, that
such quality alone will secure admiration and gain for a picture the praise
of fine colour, while the contemplation of works embrowned by repeated
varnishings has, in a certain degree, vitiated public taste.*

*I notice that one of my early experiments in stereochromy, which
shines under too lavish a layer of water-glass, is always selected for praise
in preference to another painted in the same hues but of flatted surface.'

Fresco and its Substitutes. 223

in a temper more likely to ensure ultimate success, and though
the actual results have been a mixture of deplorable failures
and doubtful half-successes, the energy, the patience, and the
care with which information was gathered and inquiry con-
ducted, and practical experiments carried through, have left
their mark — their honourable mark — on the history of the
graphic arts in England. The Government of that day, en-
tirely free from any foolish assumption of knowledge, took the
greatest pains to enlighten itself by carefully investigating the
whole subject of mural painting ; the artists of that day, emi-
nent and successful in their own peculiar paths, had the noble
humility to go, as it were, to school again and learn the con-
ditions of an art which was wholly unfamiliar to them. The
Government was ready to pay handsomely for the work done,
and yet this considerable payment was not a compensation to
the artists for the suspension of their private practice. On
all sides, in the history of those transactions, we find a dispo-
sition to incur cost and trouble in order that the country might
be enriched with one of the highest forms of art.

Pure fresco was first attempted ; and then, on the failure of
that — a failure due to some subtle technical defect of prepa-
ration — or to the air of London, or to both together, it was
decided to abandon fresco for what was looked upon as a
safer process. Then, in its turn, this safer process was looked
upon as doubtful, though less obviously perilous than fresco,
and the whole grand scheme of mural decoration for the
Houses of Parliament fell through lamentably, with rotten fres-
coes that had to be repainted anyhow, large water-glass pic-
tures not now expected to be very durable, and great vacant
panels awaiting in vain the artist who never comes. Some of
the frescoes have had to be placed under glass, which entirely
destroys that deadness of surface on which their harmony
with architecture depends, and the water-glass paintings are
menaced with a like concealment, being saved from it, for the
present, chiefly by the accident of their size.

224 The Graphic Arts.

True fresco is now abandoned in England, but mural paint-
ing, having many of the qualities of fresco, is winning gradu-
ally a hold upon the tastes and feelings of cultivated people
which would probably lead to a very extended practice of such
art if we could only be sure of its durability. It unfortunately
happens that of all merits belonging to works of art, durability
is the most difficult to ascertain. Attempts are made to pro-
duce by exposure to the extremes of heat and cold, and to
different qualities of air, the same effect which may be sup-
posed to be the result of time, but as in all such experiments
the element of time itself is wanting, they can at best only
prove that the painting has a strong constitution for the pres-
ent ; they do not show how that constitution may itself become
modified by future disease. Such tests are like the examina-
tions by the physicians of insurance companies \ they prove
soundness at the time, and give the hope of long life, but not
the certainty of it. In this uncertainty ought mural painting
to be undertaken at all ? The answer to this depends on our
philosophy about permanence. Men of science tell us that
the whole solar system, as we understand it, must come to an
end some time, that the planets will either fall into the sun
before its fire goes out, or revolve in unimaginable cold around
an extinguished orb. Long before either of these alternatives
can happen it will matter very little to our descendants whether
paintings of any kind are durable or not. All our works are
temporary ; the massive buildings, on whose walls we paint
as if for eternity, are themselves mere sheds and tents set up
for a season. The Louvre was nearly burnt in 187 1, the stone
of our Houses of Parliament is rotting, the palaces of Venice
are crumbling on their insecure and humid foundations.
There is not a Gothic cathedral in Europe that does not re-
quire watchful and incessant repair. Only the rudest and
simplest of structures, Stonehenge and the Pyramids, appear
to have any chance of lasting with the planet In the midst
of all this destruction and decay it is idle to seek for absolute

Fresco and its Substitutes. 225

permanence, but we may hope for a reasonable durability.
This is enough for the moderate ambition of the wise, who do
not expect their works to endure —

* Till all the comets in heaven are cold
And all her stars decay.*

The process of fresco-painting is as follows : —
Brick walls are preferred, and the bricks, as Mr. Cave
Thomas tells us, ought to be well dried and of equal hardness.

* The surface of the bricks should be chipped, the better to
hold the rough coat of mortar.'

The first rough mortar is a mixture of river-sand and lime,
the proportions of which have varied, but in Italy they are
said to have been two of sand to one of lime. This rough-cast
is laid evenly, and left to harden for a very long time — for
years even if the lime was fresh.

It will be a convenience, at this stage of our explanation,
to use the Italian word inionaco, generally employed for the
second coat, that of fine mortar on which the fresco is painted.
This is composed of well-prepared lime and fine sand carefully
washed, mixed in proportions which depend upon their quality.
*If the mortar contains too much lime,* says Professor Hess,

* it becomes incrusted too soon, is too smooth in surface, and
easily cracks ; if it contains too little, it is not easily floated,
the successive patches are not to be spread conveniently in
difficult situations, and the mortar is not so lasting.' Mr.
Cave Thomas and other authorities tell us that marble dust
and pozzolano have sometimes been substituted for the sand.*

The essential peculiarity of true fresco-painting is that the ^
intonaco^ or second coat of mortar, is not laid all at once, but
in patches, according to the space which the artist expects to

* Pozzolano is a substance of volcanic origin found at Pozzuoli, near
Naples, and elsewhere, and used for building purposes.

15

226 The Graphic Arts,

be able to cover in the course of a single day. He can only
work upon it whilst it is wet, because he depends upon the
drying of the plaster for the fixing of his colours. He is,
therefore, accompanied in his work by the daily labour of a
plasterer, who lays the intonaco under his direction, and re-
moves it when an error has been committed and the artist has
to paint a passage over again. Some idea of the cares and
anxieties belonging to the work of a fresco-plasterer may be
got from the fact that the men employed by Mr. Dyce and
Mr. Herbert in the Houses of Parliament both went mad and
died, one raving and the other melancholy. Mr. Herbert him-
self said * that he had nearly been driven mad by the trouble
and annoyance which the old system of fresco caused him.' I
have just said that the plasterer has to remove the intonaco
from the wall every time that the painter desires to correct
what he has been doing. He cannot correct on the dry work,
and must have fresh plaster and paint the whole passage over
again. As an instance of this, I may mention that in Mr.
Herbert's fresco of King Lear and Cordelia the head of Lear
was cut out six times, and that of Cordelia five, whilst there
was not any part of that picture which had not been cut out
four times. Nor is the cutting out so simple a matter as might
appear. It has to be done in such a manner that the joining
between the old and new intonacos may not be visible, and for
this to be managed properly care has to be taken to follow
some line in the picture, or at least to cross some uniformly
tinted space, A cutting done across the outer leaves of a
tree, where it comes against the sky, would be glaringly visi-
ble, but if it followed a branch or a trunk, or lost itself in the
masses of dense foliage, it would be concealed. So with fig-
ures ; if locks of hair were flying in the wind you could not
cut across them where they were thin and separated, you
would have to manage your cutting on the head itself, where
they were in a comparatively uniform mass. Often a cutting
will have to follow very exactly the outline of some building

Fresco and its Substitutes, 227

or a piece of drapery. Other instances might be given, but
enough has been said to show the care required in the plas-
terer's work. Besides this, he has to keep his intonaco as
nearly as possible iq the same state for successive applications
during the whole progress of the picture. Mr. Herbert said
that if by accident the plasterer put a little more water into
the intonaco one day than he had done the day before, although
the painter might colour, so far as he was concerned, exactly
in the same way, the result, after drying, would be quite dif-
ferent.

I have not space to go farther into the miseries of the
unfortunate plasterers. It seems quite natural that they
should die demented ; and it is well for their trade in England
that fresco should be so little practised amongst us. But now
consider the case of the painter himself.

Of all processes ever invented true fresco is the most trying ^
to the patience of an artist. It is true that he can work at it
quickly, but it is also true that he must work rapidly or not at
all. As it was understood by the old masters, fresco was a
slight and expeditive process. I was going to say that it was
a sort of sketching, but this word, owing to the association of
it with highly synthetic modern work, would give a false idea
of old fresco, which was founded much more upon simplifica-
tion and abstraction than upon mj^sterious and suggestive
synthesis. However, although not like modern sketching in
principle, fresco was like it in speed. It left little time for
deliberation, so that the work had to be all settled beforehand
and drawn upon a cartoon, from which the main forms were
transferred by tracing to the plaster. Then the artist filled up
in colour the spaces defined by his outlines, his colour being
mixed with water or with lime only ; but the reader is not to
suppose that the painter could see what he was doing. There
were two obstacles to that — two quite insuperable obstacles.
In the first place, the painter had to do his picture bit by bit,
and not bring it forward all together, so that he could not see

v'

228 The Graphic Arts,

the effects of the colours upon each other until the whole was
finished ; and I need not explain to any reader who knows
anything at all about colouring that a space of colour is just
as much altered by the hues of neighbouring spaces as it
would be by a change in its own colouring matter. But,
besides this inconvenience, which is common to all painting
done in patches, there was another most serious inconvenience
peculiar to fresco, the alteration of the colours by their fixing
in the lime. It is only after the lime has dried, when the
painter can work no longer on that place, that he can really
know what sort of colouring he has been doing the day before.
It would be difficult to imagine an equally serious inconven-
ience. There is something of the kind in water-colour, espe-
cially when body-colour is employed, and even in oil there are
certain changes, but then in both these processes the artist
has full liberty of subsequent modification and correction.
The peculiarity of fresco is that whilst the colours change
considerably the artist can only judge of the degree of change
at the very time when it is out of his power to alter, except by
total destruction and re-commencement

Mr. Herbert's experience of the inconvenience of fresco led
him to abandon it for another process ; and he has left his
opinion on record in a letter addressed to Lord Elcho, which
deserves to be quoted here.

* I am quite convinced,' says Mr. Herbert, ' that, however
true the theory of fresco may be, the practice of it always has
been, and will ever prove, next to an impossibility, if indeed
any refinements or subtleties of art are attempted. I may be
asked, have not the Italian painters left evidence to the con-
trary of this assertion ? I reply, using the words of Vasari,
that in his time there was but one " true fresco in Italy," and
the melancholy condition of frescoes throughout the Continent
shows further proof of Vasari's statement. Almost all the
really great colourists of Italy abandoned it after a few trials,
and the Michael Angelos held up to us as marvels of fresco

Fresco and its Substitutes, 229

have long since been in a hopeless state of decay. The
smallest work in genuine fresco, carried to any point of ex-
cellence without employing the fugitive mode of completion,
that is, vinegar and white of ^gg (so freely used by the
Italian painters), would be an achievement only to be at-
tained by successive obliterations and waste of life. Fresco
may do admirably well where a slight bravura sort of art is
required, but this should be the passe-temps for those whose
aim is very moderate and whose employers are easily satis-
fied. Fresco has had a fair trial here, and is to give way
before something a thousand times better in every way.*

It may, I believe, be considered now a settled truth about
fresco that, unless it is worked upon afterwards in tempera^ it
is of necessity a slight form of art. It gives, in a rapid and
very abstract manner, some of the results of studies done
deliberately in other and more convenient ways. It does
not, in itself, permit the quiet development of forms or the
deliberate correction of thoughts, and therefore it is not so
much an artist's process as a process by which a clever and
skilful workman could give results already reached in better
forms of art. This is clearly proved by the fact that all
frescoes whatever are copies — copies done in many cases
by the same artists who did the originals, but still copies of
cartoons. Nobody that we ever heard of composed frescoes
on the intonaco as oil pictures are frequently composed on
the canvas itself. The mental suffering which fresco occa-
sioned amongst English artists when they attempted it was
probably due in great measure to an over-estimate of its rank
amongst the fine arts. Michael Angelo had practised fresco,
and had said something disparaging of oil in comparison
with it, so an idea had got abroad that fresco was a peculiarly
great art, which ought to inspire the artist to very high
achievements, and every English artist who attempted it con-
scientiously tried to do his very best. They all overshot the
mark. Fresco ought to be looked upon as a slight and cheap

/

230 The Graphic Arts,

art, to be done without much effort and without any attempt
at elaborate finish. It ought to be considered successful
when it decorates a wall effectively and brilliantly, and comes
tolerably near the colouring intended by the artist It is to
oil-painting very much what oratory is to literature. Nobody
expects high finish of language in oratory ; if any one did
expect such a quality he would generally be disappointed ;
but we all expect promptitude, breadth, and brightness. An
orator must not hesitate, he cannot at all afford to hesitate,
but he may spread out his expressions and repeat them with
what in literature would be intolerable verbosity. So in
fresco, the artist may paint in a manner which would be con-
sidered very thin and unsubstantial in oil, but he must paint
quickly and brightly. These slight habits of work are not
easily acquired by careful workmen who have been accus-
tomed to such a deliberate method as oil, and so it happens
that when oil-painters turn to fresco they try to put more into
it than the process naturally accepts. It is as if an orator
were to attempt the fulness and finish of an essayist.

The very defects of fresco may have good results in art
Knowing that he cannot hope for much imitative finish, the
fresco-painter is compelled to trust to much higher qualities,
to the strength and originality with which his figures are in-
vented, to the grace of well-studied lines, and the enduring
charm of perfectly arranged compositions. The technical
conditions being against him, he has to fall back upon intel-
lectual and artistic excellencies, which are far higher than
clever imitation ever can be. This is one of those instances,
not infrequent in human affairs, where a material inconven-
ience results in a mental advance. Dyce observed that such
qualities as correct drawing, elevation of character, and power
of dramatic effect, still remained to the fresco-painter and
must be his resources. Besides, in spite of its difficulties,
fresco is not without some special technical advantages of its
own. * Air is got much more easily in fresco than in oil,'

Fresco and its Substitutes. 231

said Dyce ; * it comes without any effort ; if the artist is a
tolerably good colourist the air comes of itself by the drying
of the colours/ Again, not only does the deadness of sur-
face in fresco allow it to be seen in any light, but the bright-
ness of it, owing to the brilliance of the mortar showing
through the thin colour, makes fresco visible in moderately
lighted buildings, where oil-painting could not be seen.
When it was proposed to decorate Westminster Hall with
mural painting, it was beheved that fresco would be satis-
factory even in the comparatively dim light there. And
although the darks of fresco are not intense, its lights are so
brilliant that there is still a sufficient distance from one to
the other, and the scale, taken as a whole, is ample.

Fresco does not permit effects of chiaroscuro as they are
understood in oil. It allows a certain range of light and
dark, but it does not allow of shading which is at the same
time dark and easily penetrable. It has darkness at com-
mand in some degree but not depth — the darkness of it stops
the eye, and is generally better avoided. This deficiency
deprives fresco of a great range of effects which charm us in
the works of oil-painters ; but then, on the other hand, it so
happens that these effects are most undesirable in mural
painting, as they do not harmonise with architecture. The
object of mural painting is not to make us feel as if the wall
were away, but as if it were covered with beautiful decoration.

One or two peculiarities of the intonaco ground remain to
be noticed. It must be remembered that it is highly absorb-
ent, and that it leaves colours, generally, darker than when
they are laid on ; but Mr. Andrew Wilson says, in a letter to
his son, that * you can strengthen by simple repetition of tint,
but if the day be very dry after an hour or two this process
of repeating with the same tint produces an opposite effect,
and instead of drying darker it actually dries lighter^ Again,
if the touches of the brush remain wet on the surface, and
are no longer sucked in instantaneously, the painter must

232 The Graphic Arts.

give up working, as after that the colour no longer unites
with the plaster, but will show chalky spots when it is dry.

The surface of a fresco is not necessarily flat. The artist
can load if he likes with lime, just as if he were painting in
oil, and there are many instances even of excessive loading in
frescoes. The body-colour of fresco is lime.

The colours used in fresco are limited, because only those
pigments can be admitted which resist the action of lime. It
would not be an evil to have few pigments if we were per-
mitted to choose the few, as an oil-painter may, from a list
of many. Unfortunately the fresco-painter's limited palette
cannot be chosen by himself — it is determined for him by
purely chemical considerations. The list of colours used by
the old masters embarrasses us a little by our uncertainty
as to the exact nature of all the substances indicated by the
names. I have not space in this book to go into that ques-
tion in detail, nor is it necessary that I should attempt it, as
the work has already been done by Mrs. Merrifield. *The
natural colours,* she says, * are neither numerous nor brilliant,
but the frescoes of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and others,
irresistibly prove that the colours used by them were amply
sufficient for all the purposes of fresco-painting. Some of
these colours have for a long time fallen into disuse, and the
knowledge of their value, application, and use, is in a great
measure lost. Artificial colours and pigments have been
improperly substituted, and failed of their object.'

It may be true that the old masters showed how they could
do without artificial colours in the conventional colouring
of frescoes, but the reader must always bear in mind, if he
reasons about colouring, that dull colours can never, under
any circumstances, and in any hand, however skilful, make
a complete palette, consequently dull colours can but partially
imitate nature. For example, amongst the fresco colours,
when you come to inquire what yellows are admissible, you
are told that only yellow ochres can be allowed, because they

Fresco and its Substitutes. 233

are the only yellows found in a natural state. Well, yellow
ochres are most useful and valuable pigments, but a palette
that has no brighter yellows than these is an incomplete
palette, and the cleverest artist in the world can only effect
a distant approximation to natural colouring by its means,
unless he selects material in which bright yellow is neither
required for itself nor as an element in mixtures. He might
paint flesh with it, because it luckily so happens that there is
not any bright yellow in flesh, but he could not paint a prim-
rose, nor the lemon yellow of the evening sky. A bright
red is equally necessary to a complete palette, and the old
painters felt this, but they could not trust vermilion by itself.
Palomino, as quoted by Mrs. Merrifield, says that * in places
expqsed to the inclemency of the weather, neither the native
nor the artificial vermilion should be used, because in a few
days they both lose their beauty and turn to a dull mulberry
colour.' This shows how dangerous the lime of the intonaco
was to vermilion, for it stands well enough on wood or metal
even in exposed situations, such as our shop-fronts. Palo-
mino goes on to say that when the fresco was well protected
vermilion might be used if it were laid over a dead colour-
ing of red earth. Cennini and Aronenini, according to Mr.
Cave Thomas, both * distinctly say that vermilion will not
stand in fresco.'

The fresco-painters are not so badly off in blues, as they
can employ ultramarine and cobalt, as well as the best artifi-
cial ultramarines. They can use three most valuable greens
— terra verte, cobalt green, and the green oxides of chro-
mium. They have the umbers and siennas. They have to
be careful about blacks, the safest for them being, it seems,
burnt Cologne earth. For purple they have burnt vitriol,
and another kind of burnt vitriol for lake. This list gives
a sufl&cient palette for figure-painting, but not a complete
palette for everything. It does not include all that a painter
might desire for costume and landscape.

234 ^^ Graphic Arts.

The brushes used in fresco are limited to those of hog and
otter hair, as the lime curls all others. This is not a serious
privation for work on a large scale.

In a book of this kind, which includes so many varieties of
art, the above may be a sufficient account of true fresco. I
might have gone into the subject more fully, with reference
to examples, had it seemed worth while to do so after the
failure of the art in England ; but as it is not likely ever to
be followed in our country, or in any northern climate, it is
not probable that technical details concerning it will awaken
the interest of any but a very few readers, and those few
know where to find them in other writers.*

Some writers on art have regretted the failure to revive
fresco. I do not regret it, but feel disposed, rather, to re-
joice in it as a happy deliverance from a form of art which
imposed most objectionable material conditions upon the
artist. It enslaved him to the drying of mortar, to the fixing
of colours ; it changed his hues in a manner beyond his con-
trol, and actually prevented him at the same time from effect-
ing subsequent changes when his judgment perceived them to
be necessary. Most of the qualities of true fresco may be
preserved in its substitutes — the qualities of dignity, breadth,
simplicity — may be got in any kind of painting whatever if
they exist in the mind of the artist. I do not know that true
fresco is inherently superior to other kinds of mural painting
in any quality except one, and that is brightness, and even
that is very closely approached by the processes which we
have now to describe.

After the mental sufferings and the pecuniary losses en-
tailed by the failures at Westminster and by the toilsome ef-
forts to revive the art of true fresco in Munich, the advanced

* A great deal of interesting information will be found in the Minutes
of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the Fine Arts in con-
nexion with the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament, and in the
Appendices.

Fresco and its Substitutes. 235

chemical science of modern times came to the aid of the
artists, by offering to fix a simple water-colour on dry mor-
tar, as we now fix charcoal drawings. This excited the
strongest hopes at the time, as it was found that paintings
on dry mortar so fixed were able to resist very severe tests
indeed, and it was confidently expected that they would with-
stand the effects of time and climate, but it could not be
known beforehand how long they would resist the chemical
elements in an atmosphere charged with smoke. After
speaking of the true frescoes in the Houses of Parliament,
Sir H. Layard goes on to say : —

* I was at one time inclined tc5 assign this rapid decay to some
defect in the materials employed, either in the pigments, the into-
naco, or the lime, especially as the same deterioration had occurred
in some of the frescoes at Munich (though by no means in all, it
would appear), where at least the fault could not be laid upon the
English climate. The Germans, however, attributed il^to the ef-
fects of the atmosphere acting upon the exterior surface of the
painting ; and to prevent this they invented a method of covering
the fresco with a solution of silicate, called water-glass, which was
supposed to be impervious to the air. The great frescoes by Kaul-
bach and others at Berlin have been painted on this principle, and
Mr. Maclise and Mr. Herbert have adopted the process in their
most recent works in the Houses of Parliament It is perhaps too
early to pronounce decidedly upon the durability of the water-glass,
but there are grounds for fearing that it will not resist the insidious
attacks of our London smoke. Dr. Percy, after a very careful sci-
entific examination and analysis, carried on under official instruc-
tions, has come to the conclusion that no wall-painting, whether
executed in buon-fresco or fresco-secco, can resist an atmosphere
impregnated, as that of London is, with the chemical substances
evolved from the consumption of coal. He doubts even the efficacy
of water-glass, and gives it as his opinion that Mr. Herbert^s well-
known fresco will not be safe except under glass. The scientific
investigations of Dr. Percy have, unfortunately, been confirmed by
the practical experience of Sir Digby Wyatt.* *

* From a paper on Mosaic Decoration read at a meeting of the Royal
Institute of British Architects by the Right Hon. A. K- — avaxd.

236 The Graphic Arts,

Water-glass painting may be explained, in a general way,
very briefly. It is simply water-colour on dry plaster, fixed
afterwards with a solution of flint applied to it in spray as the
solution of gum-lac is applied to a charcoal drawing. The
colors used are the same as those in true fresco.

Several different kinds of water-glass have been employed.
Four kinds were described by Dr. Von Fuchs. I give his re-
ceipts for them in a foot-note.*

The two main divisions of these solutions are the potash
and the soda, sometimes called the kali and the natron water-
glasses. The kali was considered the safer of the two, and
specially recommended to Maclise by his German advisers.
As to the ground, Dr. Pettenkofer counselled Maclise to have
spread on a brick wall a coat of mortar composed of three
parts of coarse sand, one of Portland cement, and a sufficiency
of water. This was not to be more than half an inch thick,
and whilst still fresh it was to be covered with a thin coating

* Potash water-glass is composed of —

15 parts of pulverised quartz, or pure quartz sand,
10 „ well purified potash,
I „ powdered charcoal.
Soda water-glass : —
45 lbs. of quartz,

23 „ anhydrous carbonate of soda,
3 „ powdered charcoal.
Double water-glass : —
100 parts of quartz,
28 „ purified potash,
22 „ neutral anhydrous carbonate of soda,
6 „ powdered charcoal.
Fixing water-glass : —
Produced by adding soluble silicate of soda to the ordinary water-
glass ; Von Fuchs does not say in what proportion.
The ingredients are first mixed by fusion at a very high temperature
during five or six hours, like common glass, which the mixture resembles
in appearance. It is taken out of the melting-pot and allowed to cool,
after which it is pulverised and dissolved in boiling water, and is boiled
down to a sufiicient degree of concentration. It can always be diluted
with water afterwards.

Fresco and its Suffstitiites. 237

of fine mortar consisting of three parts of fine sand and one
of Portland cement with soft water. The best sand for this
purpose was a carbonate of lime, and if the ground was to be
very absorbent Roman cement might be preferred to Port-
land. The thickness of the coat needed not exceed a sixth
of an inch, and might be less. Sand of the same quality as
that used in the fine mortar was thrown against the wall as it
was setting, and shaved away with a flat iron edge, more sand
being afterwards thrown on the wall and allowed to stick and
dry there. When the wall had dried the superfluous sand
was swept away and the prepared surface wetted with a satu-
rated solution of carbonate of ammonia.*

After practising water-glass for a year and a half, MacHse
did not find that an extremely absorbent or an extremely
rough ground was desirable. Tracing was very difficult on
rough plaster, on smooth plaster it was clear. A very ab-
sorbent ground of Portland cement ' instantly sucked the wet
colour dry from the painting-brush.' It was not fixed without
great difficulty, and when the fixing was at last accomplished
the painting was very much darkened by it.

The colours used in the water-glass process are the same
as in true fresco, with the exception of lime-white, which is
absolutely forbidden in water-glass and replaced by zinc-
white, which 'from its delicate nature allows the water-glass
to penetrate through it to the wall.' The lighter colour of the
plaster itself may be left to play an important part, as paper
is in water-colour drawings. Colours need not be mixed with
while unless the artist desires it ; when he does not mis them
his work answers to transparent water-colour; when he mixes
them with white it answers to body-colour.

Some colours are more difficult to fix than others. Ochres
are fixed easily ; cobalt, black, and chrome red, are fixed

• Al one time the plaster was impregnated wilh water-glass before the
artist began to paint upon it, but this practice was found to be unneces-
Mry and was abandoned.

238 The Graphic Arts*

with comparative difficulty. The fixing is done lightly and
repeatedly, but so as not to produce a gloss. The instru-
ment used for the purpose sends a spray which is found in
practice to be better than an application with the brush, except
in the case of the most rebellious colours.

Work already fixed may be painted upon again and fixed a
second time, just as in a charcoal drawing you may retouch
with charcoal and fix again with spray.

The superiority of water-glass over pure fresco is that the
artist can carry forward his entire work at once in a compara-
tively deliberate manner. It is not so deliberate a process as
oil-painting, but it may fairly be compared with water-colour,
and indeed really is water-colour in the strictest sense, for the
colours are mixed with water and nothing else. It is evident
from the notes and letters of Maclise, whilst he was at work
in the Houses of Parliament, that he was happy in the pro-
, cess, and glad to be relieved from the intolerable annoyances
of true fresco. He was also full of hope and trust in the
durability of the new process, and happily believed himself to
be painting for a very remote posterity. We have seen that
this confidence has since given way to doubts, but it is still
certain that water-glass promises a longer existence in our
climate than pure fresco.

Before leaving this part of the subject, I may say a few
words on the mural paintings in the Houses of Parliament,
considered with reference to that connexion of painting with
architecture of which we spoke at the beginning of the chapter.

The two most important works in the whole building are
the vast illustrations of the Wellington and Nelson epoch —
the * Meeting of Wellington and Bliicher after Waterloo,*
and the * Death of Nelson.' By the choice of these subjects,
each painted in a panel forty-six feet long and twelve feet
high, the artist illustrated both the naval and the military
history of England. They are both most interesting works,
they are truly historical pictures, as most of the principal

Fresco atid its Substilnles. 239

figures are portraits, and the artist worked near enough to
the events for him to procure from survivors the most ample
information as to matters of detail. Maclise was one of the
most industrious of men, and one of the most conscientious
artists who ever lived — a man who never wouSd willingly do
less than his best, or rest contented with inaccurate represen-
tations of men and things, when, by taking trouble, he ccftild
attain a closer approximation to the truth. He was a sound
draughtsman, but at the same time he was hard and ana-
lytic ; he did not receive those single-stroke impressions from
nature in which objects are only seen in relation whilst their
mystery is preserved. This caused a serious defect in his oil-
paintings, which are tight in outline and hard in surfaces ;
but for mural painting the artist's habits of sight and repre-
I sentation were less objectionable, because here the work nat-
urally allowed a considerable degree of artificially exaggerated
definition. I should not, therefore, feel inclined to insist
much upon this with reference to mural paintings, for we ex-
pect them to be clearly outlined and quite devoid of mystery ■
but if I were asked whether such paintings as the two great
works in the Royal Gallery were the best adapted to their
situation, I should be compelled to answer in the negative
They are not properly paintings which associate themselves
naturally and easily with architecture. We see at once that
the artist had been a contributor to modern exhibitions, and
that it had been his business, and also no doubt his pleasure,
to awaken popular interest by vivid representations of dra-
matic incidents. The two water-glass paintings in the Royal
Gallery are, in fact, enlarged Academy pictures, bearing as
little reference to the architecture of the room as a picture in
the Royal Academy bears to the architecture of Burlington
House. To prevent a possible misunderstanding or misrep-
resentation of this criticism, let me say that 1 should not at
all think it necessary to introduce mediaeval architecture or
even mediaeval costume into the wail -paintings at Westmin-

240 The Graphic Arts*

ster. I would not be so narrow or intolerant as that ; I be-
lieve, indeed, that the representation of modem men in that
building was just one of those innovations which are the evi-
dence of life in art — that if a pseudo-roediaevalism had been
carried through in everything the result would have been a
deathful Chinese imitation of past forms. So far Maclise
wa^ right, but for mural painting I think his incidents were
too agitated and dramatic The military subject is the less
objectionable of the two. If a battle scene was to be repre-
sented at all it was well to choose the time immediately after
the battle, the time of mingled joy and grief , when the two
great friendly commanders met with hearts full of deep glad-
ness for the deliverance of Europe, and of sorrow for the loss
of their comrades. The naval subject is equally interesting
— it is even too interesting ; it carries us at once out of the
palace at Westminster to Trafalgar Bay, and places us upon
the very deck of the Victory, painted the actual size with bul-
warks, spars, cordage, planks, all given with the vivid realism
which startles us in the most effective panoramas. The in-
cident represented is dramatic in the highest de^^ree. The
greatest naval captain in English history has jusi: received
his death-wound ; he is surrounded by his brothers-in-arms,
full of anxiety and sorrow, whilst the nearest common sailors
give evidence of their distress, and the others are still en-
gaged in the hard work of battle. Now, the more successful
the artist is in making us feel the reality of such a scene, in
making us believe that we are actually on the deck of the
Victory amidst roar of guns and crash of spars, the more he
disturbs or destroys the effect of the architecture of the hall ;
and finally it comes to this, that we utterly forget the archi-
tecture, and, so far as Sir Charles Barry's building is con-
cerned, we might just as well be looking at a battle-panorama
in Waterloo Place.

* The Death of Nelson ' is the extreme example of this kind
of error at Westminster, but the pictures in the corridors are

Fresco and its Substitutes.

241

■Kke the line of an Academy exhibition at the time when they
were executed, with this difference only, that as fresco was
more difficult for the artists than oil, and did not offer equal
technical resources, the works are not so clever in execution
as so many oil pictures would have been. I have already
observed that by being placed under glass the deadness of
r surface has been sacrificed. They can no longer be
Beally seen. Even if they were properly visible they would
^lill be far from the true conception of mural painting, be-
cause their picturesque naturalism and their too interesting
incidents are remote from the conventionalism and the sever-
ity of architecture.

The subjects in the House of Lords, three over the
trangers' Gallery and three above the Throne, are much
1 the province of mural painting.

'The Spirit of Justice,' ' Keligion,' and 'The Spirit of
Chivalry,' are quiet and dignified ideal subjects, perfectly
adapted to their situations, and which do not set up any con-
flict with the arcliitecture. The pictures above the Throne "
are historical subjects of incidents illustrating chivalry, reli-
gion, and justice — incidents in which there is no disturbance,
no violence, and not too much dramatic intensity. They
harmonise well with the architectural effect, and interest us
sufficiently without carrying us out of the building. Mr.
Herbert's water-glass fresco in the Peers' Robing Room,
' Moses bringing down the Second Tables of the Law,' is a
serious and noble work, with many of the severe qualities that
are desirable in mural painting, yet the scene, considered with
reference to mural painting only, is perhaps more spacious
and more of a landscape than is quite desirable. It is very
impressive. We are made to feel the grandeur of Sinai and

• ' The Black Prince receiving the Order of (he Garter from Edward
inVbyMr. Cope , 'The Baptism of Elhelbett.'by Mr. Dyce ; and ' Printe
Slenry, afterwards Henry V,, acknowledging ihe authority of Cliief Jus-
Gascoigne,' by Mr. Cope.

242 The Graphic Arts.

the sublimity of those surroundings amongst which Moses
always lives in our imagination as one of the most majestic
figures in the Bible, but still the painting is less a decoration
of wall-surface than a removal of the wall. It takes us out of
London and to the stony Sinai range almost, though not
quite, as effectually as Maclise takes us on board the Victory.
In a word, though a fine and successful work, it has more
realism than is compatible with the most perfect mural paint-
ing. One great merit it does possess — it is extremely lumi-
nous. The artist has done his best to rival the brilliance of
true fresco, and has in a very great measure succeeded.*

Mural painting might be cheaper and easier if it were done
in monochrome, like the noble fresco of Mr. Watts at Lincoln's
Inn, but, unfortunately, for decorative purposes bright colour
is generally felt to be essential, and bright colour becomes
crude and offensive unless it is the work of a colourist There
is, consequently, not much hope that monochromes, which
appeal more to the mind than the eye, will ever be generally
associated with architecture ; but if some good and safe sub-
stitute for fresco can be found there is no reason why mural
painting should not be extensively practised in a simple and
expeditious manner. The right conception of it, as quite dis-
tinct from the production of highly-finished easel pictures, has
been stated with admirable clearness by Mr. Armitage. * It
is astonishing,' he said in a letter to Mr. Beavington Atkinson,
* how effective a mere outline design filled in with flat tints,
and with the shades merely indicated, may be made, provided
such outline be of a grand and impressive form. It would be
necessary before fresco could become general in the country,
first, that the subjects selected for the decoration of buildings
should be of a simple nature; secondly, that the execution

* This was accomplished by selecting an effect of broad open day-
light, and by keeping as much as possible to luminous colours, but the
artist a]so took the precaution of preparing bis wall-surface with pure
dnc-white before he began to paint upon it..

♦*

I sho

Fresco and its Siibstiliilcs. 243

should be broad and rapid ; and, thirdly, that the artist should
be willing to sacrifice a portion of his accustomed remunera-
tion in the service oi a noble art and for the honour of his
counqy.'

The doubts about the permanence of water-glass have led
to experiments in other materials, of which the most promising
known down to this year (1881") is Mr. Gambler Parry's 'Spirit
Fresco.' This is not more really fresco than water-glass is,
for the intonaco is not fresh when the artist paints upon it, but
it is a kind of painting upon mortar with a dead surface, which
has at the same time very nearly ail the qualities of true fresco
and the inestimable advantage of the greatest possible execu-
tive convenience. This quality of executive convenience may
not be of much interest to the general public, which has noth-
ing to do in a practical way with the implemenls and materials
of art, and yet, as I will clearly prove, it very closely concerns
all who take any serious interest in the fine arts. When the
processes of art are tedious, uncertain, and disappointing, its
results are likely to be imperfect, fugitive, and costly ; when
the processes are delightful for their facility and for the per-
fection wiih which the artist e.tpresses his ideas, then it is
likely that his work will reflect his mind more faithfully and
that he may afford to give it at a lower price. Everybody
knows how seriously a bad pen and unpleasant paper interfere
with the expression of thought, yet these are Small troubles in
comparison with those of the true fresco painter, for when
the writer's idea is once expressed it does not alter after-
wards, whereas the colours of fresco are altered both by
their own drying and by the juxtaposition of the patches yet
to come.

With the ' Spirit Fresco ' an able arrist may do whatever he
will. Sir Frederick Leighton, at my request, kindly wrote his
opinion of it after finishing his large mural painting of the
' Arts of War ' at South Kensington, and here it is in his owa

1

244 T^ke Graphic Arts.

' I think the " Spirit Fresco," as it is called, I don't know why,*
a most delightful material — it is particularly easy to manipulate,
and in its results highly satisfactory. It has, indeed, neither the
lightness, nor, on the other hand, the dignity of pure (buon) fresco,
but it has greater variety. This is perhaps a doubtful bussing.
Meanwhile it is, as far as I can see, perfectly durable.'

Already, in 1864, Leighton had written to Lord Elcho
nearly in the same sense, though after less considerable ex-
perience : —

'As I am, to the best of my belief, the only professional painter
who has worked with Gambier Parry's spirit fresco, it may be con-
venient to you to refer to my unfinished works at Lyndhurst. I
therefore send you two or three details, which may interest your
audience. The merits of the material are chiefly these : Great sim-
ilarity of result to buono fresco, which it approaches so nearly as to
deceive anyone not conversant with the practice of painting ; great
scope of colour, as it embraces the whole oil palette, and is not
subjected to any of the limitations which are peculiar to fresco ;
great facility of manipulation, admitting of washes, impasto, and
glazing within the space of a very few hours ; litde or no change in
the drying, not more than in water-colour drawing on absorbent
sketching paper — Harding's for instance ; facility of retouching, as
the surface is always soluble in spirit, though proof against water.
The only point in which it is inferior to real fresco is in the absence
of that pure crystalline quality of light so peculiar to the latter. On
the other hand, it has, in a great degree, that other quality of fresco
which is the Alplia and Omega of all grand monumental work —
gravity — dignity.'

The wall is prepared for Spirit Fresco by being covered
with a stucco composed of two parts of thoroughly slaked

* This little criticism of the title is very just. The process is not fresco
at all, but mural painting on dry mortar more nearly related to tempera,
the yolk of egg being replaced by Mr. Gambier Parry's medium. Neither
is the diluent what we commonly understand by spirit, but is an essential
oil often used in oil-painting. Real spirit fresco would be done on fresh
intonaco with an alcoholic medium. The reader will find something about
a true spirit process in the chapter on Water-colour.

tt

Fresco and its Substitutes. 245

lime and three of perfectly waBhed white sand.' This Stucco
is not covered by any subsequent coat or layer of a finer kind
answering to the intonaco of true fresco, it is left absolutely as
it is, so far as the plaslerer is concerned. It is, however,
primed for painting as follows : Two ounces by measure of
the ' medium ' (which will be described shortly) are diluted
with three ounces of spirit of turpentine, and the surface of
the stucco is well soaked with it. Two days are allowed to
elapse, and the surface is soaked again. After this the wall
is thickly painted twice over with a mixture of pure white lead
in powder, and of pure whiting worked up in the 'medium'
and diluted with about one-third of spirits of turpentine. This
mixture dries in three weeks, and gives a white surface, which
is absorbent. So far as luminous quality is concerned, it will
be noticed that this preparation is very like that for Mr. Her-
bert's 'Moses.'

The medium is prepared by melting two ounces by weight
of elemi resin with two ounces by measure of spirit of turpen-
tine, and straining the mixture through muslin. To this are
added four ounces of melted white wax. Whilst tbe whole is
still warm the maker adds twenty ounces by measure of the
finest picture copal, and boiis altogether to a white foam,
stirring thoroughly and then removing the vessel from the
fire. This done, the mixture is boiled again, and five ounces
by measure of oil of spike are added just before the vessel is
finally removed.

The reader will have noticed in Sir Frederick Leighton's
letter that the range of pigments is that of the oil palette, and
that this kind of painting ' is not subject to any of the limita-
tions which are peculiar to fresco.' All the colours have, how-
ever, to be ground in the medium itself, and not in oil or
water. The diluent used in the actual work of painting is oil
of spike, and the method of painting requires some rapidity

the Purtfalio

246 The Graphic Arts.

and decision, that the spike oil may not have time to dissolve
what lies beneath. * Any portion of the painted surface that
may have become quite hard is to be moistened with spike oil
before repainting or retouching.*

From this account it will be seen that the process depends
chiefly on the binding power of wax and resins, and on the
deadening effect of oil of spike. The proportion of white
wax is considerable, but its disposition to make pictures flow
or crack is counteracted, first, by the nature of the ground,
and secondly, by the hardening power of the elemi resin and
the copal. The result is a medium which becomes sufficiently
hard and resisting without gloss. I have not seen any works
in this medium except Sir Frederick Leighton's * Arts of War '
at South Kensington ; but that, so far as it can be judged
after so short an existence, is in all respects satisfactory. The
surface is perfectly dead, like true fresco, so that the picture
can be seen from any point, and there is great brightness and
variety in the colours. I cannot help feeling a little surprise
that Sir Frederick should have liked so rough a surface, and
it seems that when dirt from the London atmosphere has
accumulated in the innumerable little caverns of the stucco,
which are relatively very deep, it will be extremely difficult to
ferret it out again, but however this may be, the present effect
on the eye is most agreeable at a little distance. This picture
must not be left without a word about its general qualities as
a mural painting. We have spoken about Maclise, and the
choice of some of his subjects, not, let us hope, in such a
manner as to leave an impression that we underrated a man
of his great ability, but still so as to question his judgment
with reference to the particular department of art treated of
in this chapter. I should say that Maclise was a very clever
man, who did not quite recognise the due limits of mural
painting, and who brought to it a style and a selection of sub-
ject better fitted for oil pictures, and even sometimes for the
panorama. I should not say this of Leighton. Such a sub-

Fresco and its Substilitfes. 247

Arts of War ' put his judgment to a very severe
;st. In an age so proud as ours is of great guns and massive
there was a strong temptation — I mean the tempta-
tion would have been strong to minds of a certain order —
just to go to the works of Krupp at Essen, or to those of Sir
William Armstrong at Newcastle, and there find the whole
picture ready to hand in the action of brawny men perspiring
before glowing furnaces in a mystery of smoke, and steam,
and dust. Such a representation of the ' Arts of War ' would
have been perfectly satisfactory to that spirit of the present
hour which has been called the temper of the newspapers;
but would it have been in accordance with the best spirit of
mural painting? There is the question. The painter has
answered it in his own practical way, steering clear, with a
wariness and caution which deserve respectful acknowledg-
ment— steering clear of that too tangible reality which is
perilous to all graphic art, but which is most especially perilous
to the dignified and sober art of wall-painting, A few Italian
gentlemen of the fifteenth century are examining and trying
the productions of their armourers ; they stand in elegant
groups in their brilliant dresses of peace, under a bright sky
with fair architecture behind them. In the foreground beau-
tiful women are at work with the needle, they, too, being
elegantly dressed and not unpleasantly occupied. Out of
these materials a stately and beautiful picture may be com-
posed by one who has the gift. Out of the grimy interior of
a modern arsenal you might get effects of mystery and gloom,
powerful in their way, but utterly unsuitable to fresco, or to
anything resembling fresco.

In despair of attaining real permanence in any kind of
painting on mortar it has been proposed to use mosaic as a
substitute for mural painting. No doubt mosaic is in a very
high degree decorative, but it bears the same relation to wall-
painting that Berlin wool-work bears to a drawing on paper.

'Cry drawing that is reproduced in little squares, each of

243 The Graphic Arts,

which is of one colour throughout, must be barbarous and
inadequate in comparison with the freedom of an artist's own
manual design. In comparison with such a piece of work as
the wall-picture just described the most elaborate mosaic is a
rude affair ; in short, the whole art of mosaic is comparatively
an art of an inferior grade. It is, however, extremely effec-
tive as an auxiliary to architecture, because it is not too subtle
and delicate, and easily appears to form part of the architec-
ture itself, whilst from its inevitable conventionalism it neyer
opens windows in walls, but is visibly a decoration of wall-
surface. Again, it is the only kind of wall decoration which
can without crudity maintain anything like an equal contest
with the splendour of stained glass. The drawing in it may
be quite sufficiently delicate for such purposes, and, without
^oing into the refinements which belong to the pencil alone, it
may give majestic human forms against splendid conventional
backgrounds. Notwithstanding these qualities, it must, how-
ever, always be borne in mind that mosaic is a most danger-
ous kind of decoration to employ at all unless it is employed
lavishly. If, in a chapel, you fill up a panel or two with
mosaic and leave the others white the effect will be th^t of
riches and poverty side by side. It makes bare walk look
cold, and even in the Albert Monument the ejffect of it (along
with the gilding on the principal figure) hag been to give the
marble sculptures an additional chilliness. Mo3aic is not un-
favourable to architecture, but it kills all sober painting and
injures all non-metallic sculpture. It belongs strictly to the
same category as stained glass and illumination, being in fact
itself illumination in a Very permauent form.

I shall have something to say of oil-painting as a means of
mural decoration, but prefer to reserve this part ,of the sub-
ject for the chapter on Oil-painting in general.

Painting in Oil.

1^249

CHAPTER XXI.

PAINTING IN OIL AND VARNISH.

I, — The Practice of some Old Masters.

'HE vast influence of material conditions on the develop-
ment of art has never been more evident than in the
effects of vamish and oil. Let the reader imagine, if he can,
what the condition of painting would be al this time if it had
always been confined to fresco, tempera, or water-colour. He
must not suppose even that water-colour itself would be the
vivid and various art that we know under that name. Modem
water-colour owes half its force, and more than half its intellect-
ual interest and variety, to the opening of the European mind
by the extensive practice of oil-painting. What it would have
become by itself nobody can precisely say, but a guess may be
formed from the way in which it lagged behind oil for centuries.

If painting had been confined to fresco the principles of art
would have continued to be decorative. The full study of na-
ture, in the modem sense, would not have been encouraged or
pursued. Men would have simplified and defined everything ;
mystery and chiaroscuro would not have been amongst their
studies. Colour, even, bright as it is in some frescoes, would
not have been what an accomplished modem oil-painter under-
stands by colour, but a far more elementary arrangement of hues,
with little of the subtlety of nature and nothing of its confusion.
The whole art of painting would, in short, have been held down
,pemianently in an elementary condidon so far as technical

'elopment is concerned, and this not for want of genius in

I

I

I
J

250 The Graphic Arts.

the artists, but because lime and sand are ungrateful materials
to work upon and water a poor medium.

There was a better chance with tempera. It is not so per-
manent as fresco, except in dry situations, but its medium, yolk
of egg, is richer than water, and affords some chance of greater
amplitude in work. Still, even tempera is greatly inferior to oil
in facilities for producing rich surfaces on the picture itself and
rich textures imitatively. It is quite true that tempera painting,
when varnished, looks deceptively like oil, but it is not like the
oil-painting of a skilful modem artist It has never the tnor-
bidezza of the best modem painting; it looks clear enough,
precise enough, but it looks hard at the same time. If tempera
had remained the medium for easel pictures we might have been
all painting up to hard outlines to this day.

Another curious consequence of this would have been the
state of modem criticism. Critics are taught by artists ; with-
out works of art to learn from they would sit inarticulate be-
fore the natural world, and that natural world in its aesthetic
aspects would be for ever umntelligible to them. If, then, the
art of painting had stopped short at fresco or tempera, criticism
would have stopped there too, and strangely narrow and limited
it would have been. Some idea of its probable condition under
such circumstances may be derived from the wonderfully feeble
state of art-criticism in antiquity, when only definite form was
understood, and nobody knew anything about those visual effects
on which the modem art of painting is founded.

The simple discovery of a rich and unctuous medium which
does not dry fast, does not much discolour the pigments, and
upholds them so as to prevent ranning, has done more for paint-
ing, and for the knowledge of nature in connexion with painting,
than aU the wisdom of the ancients.

The greatest gain by the discovery of oil-painting has been
the possibility of really deliberate work. The oil-painter may
'de hurried by poverty, by the necessity for appearing at an
exhibition, or by the exigencies of a sitter, but he has at least one

Painting in Oil. 251

inestimable comfort, he is never hurried by his materials. The
fresco- painter was a slave to the setting of plaster ; the water-
colour painter is a slave to the drying of a wash ; the painter in
oil can work in perfect tranquillity, and has lime to think and lo
dream. The value of such a condition of things to the intel-
lectual and imaginative faculties is beyond all estimate. It has
been their emancipation from the tyranny of matter.

The advantages of this discovery are not limited by the con-
stant opportunity for deliberation. Oil-painting favours techni-
cal skill in many ways, and in one way especially, which includes
the rest — it gives the artist a range of technical contrasts and
oppositions unequalled in variety and extent, I will not say by
any other kind of painting, for that would be less than the truth,
but by any other kind of graphic art whatever. The discovery
of the unctuous medium gave us a means of expression which
was not only far more powerful than any other of the graphic
itg^^ but also incomparably more flexible and various in its efii-
■eiency. Before this chapter has reached its close I hope to
show (it caimot be done in a sentence) that of all the graphic
arts oil-painting is that which most readily adapts itself to the
varieties of human genius. Instead of being one language only,
with one set of qualities, it is in itself many languages at once,
with all their qualities, however dissimilar, however apparently
incompatible. The proof that this is a simple statement of plain
truth, and not a rhetorical exaggeration, is that all civilised na-
tions, though differing widely from each other in their feelings
about nature and their tastes in art, find that oil-painting best
expresses their own peculiar idiosyncrasy. In Italy, the land of
fresco, oil is the dominant art ; in France, which brought pastel
to unrivalled perfection, pastel has not a chance before oil ; in
England, where water-colour iias been so skilfully practised and
so intelligently understood, every Academy exhibition shows the
predominance of oil. Turn where you will, to the great schools
of Austria and Germany, or to the schools of Belgium, Holland,
Scandinavia, America, you always fmd this art of oil-

252 The Graphic Arts.

painting ado|)ted as the chief artistic language of the countiy.
Fresco has died out before it, tempera survives only in its lower
forms (who now thinks of painting a gallery picture in tempera ?),
and by the unanimous consent of civilised mankind it is decided
that in this great, wonderful organ of oil-painting there are stops
aough for all the multitude of their voices.

I hope that the critical reader will not expect me to give him
anything like a history of oil-painting in this place. With the
limited room at my disposal I could not discuss historical ques-
tions, many of which are obscure and complex, without deviat-
ing too widely from my own path. If the reader is interested'
in them he should study that most valuable book, Sir Charles^
Eastlake's Materials^ a book which is my best excuse for not.
going much into the history of the art, both because it has occu-
pied the ground before me, and because it fills a thousand
pages, whilst I have here but a single chapter.

There are, however, one or two points of importance in the
history of painting which we cannot afford to neglect even when
our purpose is technical. The reader may have observed that
I head my chapter with the title * Painting in Oil and Varnish.'
This tide is chosen in order to mark with more than usual dis-
tinctness the historical importance of varnish in what is com-
monly called oil-painting. Of the two it might more accurately
have been called varnish-painting, at least in its earliest and its
latest practice, for in ' oil-painting ' of the primitive kind varnish
was the real medium, and in modem 'oils* megilps are em-
ployed which contain a large proportion of varnish, and owe to
it their jelly-like consistency and their brightness. It has often
been made a reproach to modem oil-painters that they paint in
anything but oil, yet in the free employment of vamish they
follow one of the oldest and, let me add, one of the sounder
traditions of their art. It is, indeed, a mere accident that paint-
ing without ^gg or water should have been caUed isil and not
vamish painting. In a gallery of old pictures, or in a modem
exhibition^ vamish exists in abundance, and that not simply zsk

Painting in Oil. 253

a snrface covering, but in the constitutions of the works them-
selves. The real reason why we speak of ' oil ' so generally is
because the colours are originally ground in oil, which is more
convenient for that purpose than any solution of gum. Besides
this the gums themselves aie either dissolved in oil or in some
essence which mixes readily with oil.

Hubert Van Eyck is supposed to have been the inventor of
painting in oil varnish. The okl art historians tell us that his
brother John was an experimentalist in ' oils, resins, and other
natural and artificial things,' and the result of his experiments
was the adoption of varnish-painting, which, as he wisely practised
it, was both brilliant and convenient, and which the experience
of four hundred and fifty years has proved to be wonderfiilly
dta-able.

The following extract from Sir Charles Eastlake's Materials
gives, in a few words, the result of his researches about the
earliest processes of varnish-painting : —

' The varnish of Van Eyck was oleo-res incus, and its immixture
with the colours supposes Ibat it was rendered nearly colourless.
Still, this result, by whatever means effected, may not have been
attained at once : the first inventor, Hubert, may have been con-
tent with a darker medium, and it has been observed (without ref-
erence to thi.s question) that his pictures and those of hia scholars
are, not unfrequeolly. really browner in tone than those of John
Van Eyck. The improvement, indeed, is likely to have been grad-
ual in all respects, and Vasari was quite safe in asserting that it
was so. For the same reason the extent to which tempera was
employed in the first experiments may have been far greater than
in the ialer works of these painters. The thickness of the vehicle,
in its less perfect stale, rendered it fit only for flat glazing tints ;
till that detect was remedied (and It must have been remedied
early) pictures executed in liie new process could liave been little
more than tempera preparations, tinted with transparent varnish
colours.'

The transition from tempera to varnish- painting would natu-
rally be by first varnishing the tempera for its preservation, and

J

254 ^^^ Graphic Arts.

for the shining appearance which is so delightful to popular taste.
After that, the varnish itself would be tinted and used as what
we now call a glaze. Finally, the tempera under-painting would
be discarded when it was found that all the colours could be
mixed with the oily or varnish medium.

The early history of varnish-painting is, however, not quite so
simple as this brief account of it might lead the reader to imag-
ine, because tempera was often employed in the earlier processes
of a varnish-picture as water-colour has been in modem times
under what we call oil-painting. Some connoisseurs believe that
they can detect tempera under the oil-painting of men whom we
consider the ripest masters, and that the use of it, as an auxiliary
or a preparation, persisted much longer than is usually imagined.
The reader will easily understand that tempera and oil or var-
nish painting may be combined in the same picture ; the artist
has only to varnish a tempera painting to make it pleasant
enough to work upon afterwards in the same varnish. The
safety of the combination is another matter ; that depends upon
the quantity of egg used with the tempera pigments, and upon
the quality of the varnish. I only say that pictures may be, and
have been, painted in that compound manner; I should be
sorry to make myself answerable for the consequences of such
e3q)eriments.

It is time for us now to leave tempera without recurring to it,
and to direct our attention to the pure varnish- painting from
which tempera was excluded.

The process was, briefly, as follows : — A panel of well-sea-
soned oak was prepared by being covered with gesso^ a mixture
of wliiting and size, the size being in quantity sufficient to make
the gesso able to resist oil. On this non-absorbent surface,
scraped perfectly smooth, the artist made a pure and careful
linear drawing, the primitive idea of painting being not what is
understood by it in a riper stage of the art, but simply a draw-
ing coloured afterwards. The drawing itself was made in line,
either in ink or black chalk, and it was sometimes shaded. Over

Painting in Oil,

3SS

it was passed a priming, that is, a very thin varnish painting
which would show the drawing through it with the addition of
its own tints, not strong tints, but sufficient to suggest the sub-
sequent colouring without darkening the panel, which had to be
kept luminous. This priming having dried, all the shadows were
painted with brown mixed with varnish, and transparent. The
picture was now well advanced according to the practice of
those days, when painting went on by regular safe stages. The
next thing to be done to it was the colouring, which was carried
on in the most careful way all over it, one great rule being lo
keep all the light parts as thinly covered with pigment as pos-
sible, in order that the light from the panel might shine through.
In that primitive painting men did not care so much to keep
their shadows thin.

To recapitulate. This early practice included four processes
— I, A careful drawing (not a sketch), a. A priming (some-
times omitted). 3. A shading in transparent brown with var-
nish. 4. The colouring of the whole.

The reader will see, as we pursue the subject, that however
apparenUy perfect the results of these processes may have been
in their own way, it was impossible that artists of energy and
genius could bind themselves for ever to such a methodical art
as that. After further experience, it was discovered that there
was no real necessity to preserve the light of the gesso ground,
because luminous quality could at any time be recovered by
painting a passage in solid white, and then painting thinly upon
that. At a later period it was also discovered that there was no
real necessity for anything like finished drawing in the earlier
stages of the work, but I cannot piirsue this part of the subject
just at present, because it would lead me on too fast.

It will have been observed that at the end of the third process
in early Flemish painting the work was still but little more than
a monochrome, and when the priming had been omitted it was
purely and simply a monochrome. Before going farther, let us
consider a little what has been the oflice and the im^cKtan.c.%. 'A

256 The Graphic Arts.

monochrome in oil-padndng, as a foundation for subsequent
work in colour.

The advantage of it, as a preparation, is that it gives a foun-
dation of light and dark which is valuable as a guide to the li^t
and dark of the picture in colour. The danger of pure colour,
without a monochrome preparation, is that unless the artist has
had much training in work done for tonic relations only, he is
likely to be carried away by his interest in the hue so as to for-
get the relation, as mere light or dark, of one colour in his
picture to another.

To make this clear, let me give an example from my own
experience of landscape, as there is nothing like personal expe-
rience in these matters. The real colour of the fresh-water
lakes in the Highlands of Scodand is brown, from the peat;
when the sky is unclouded its blue is reflected on the water, and
as the water itself is dark already, the blue looks very dark. If
an artist were to paint it as it struck him, he would probably err
in depriving it of light, but if he first painted his landscape in
monochrome he would give the lake its right relation to the
trees and rocks on the shore, being no longer tempted by the
azure. Afterwards, on the monochrome foundation, he would
easily add, with its guidance, just that temperate degree of blue
which might be compatible with the true opposition, as light
and dark, between the lake and the foreground.

This is a single instance ; but there are thousands of cases in
which colour tempts an artist to go beyond the mark, when a
monochrome foundation wouW keep him faithful to the tonic
conditions of his work, and here is the reason why the careful
old Flemish and Dutch painters were so fond of a preparatory
monochrome.

Again, it was found by experience that if the brown of the
monochrome was very carefully and judiciously chosen, it helped
the pleasantness of the picture by tempering the crudeness of
the colours. There were many tints which looked crude or
thin upon a white ground, and yet looked comfortable, pleasant.

Painting in Oil. 257

well sustained upon a warm golden brown. The Dutch paint-
ers disliked crudity very much ; they were not always very
learned colourists so far as range of palette was concerned, they
contented themselves too easily with brown shadows, yellowish
lights, and grey half-tones, but they could not endure raw and
staring colour, so they clung to monochrome preparations with
a tenacity which may seem surprising in an age hke ours that is
impatient of aU preparatory labour.

The objection to monochrome beginnings is that if they are
carried into detail ihey compel the artist to follow them minutely
in his colouring, so that he is no longer free to do as he likes,
but has to follow a set task in the final stages of his picture.
This is the reason why modem artists have generally a dislike
to monochrome and do without it. A very few remain faithful
to the old practice, one of the few being Sir John Gilbert. He
does not always bind himself down to it absolutely, but it is his
favourite method. The following extract from a letter which he
wrote to me will interest the reader : —

^^

The systen of monochrome foundation is that of the Flemish
id Dutch schools, and it is as applicable to landscape as to figure
pictures. Rubens got in his landscapes in brown all oiier, so^d
Teniers, so did the Dutch landscape and marine painters. »

'They put in all the forms, clouds, distant hills, &c., middle
distance, and foreground with brown, raw umber, raw umber and
burnt sienna, raw umber and black. Some used warmer browns
than others. This work dry, they went all over the canvas with
raw sienna or raw sienna cooled to a kind of dun colour.

'The blues of the sky were tli inly painted over this groimd after
it was thoroughly dry. By looking carefully into their landscapes
you will see the ground shining Ihroufjh the blue. This gives air
and prevents coldness. You will see it in the shadow of the
clouds, and you will not fail to see it al! tiyough the rest of the
picture. It is more apparent as if comes to the foreground, which
is in fact almost left as first prepared. See Teniers and Rubens,
"and indeed all of ihem.

In the- works of Rubens and Ostade the brown preparalioix w.

258 The Graphic Arts.

very warm; in Teniers, Van de Velde, and others, it is less warm,
a dull brown, sometimes a sort of cane colour, but in all cases, in
all their landscapes, the monochrome system prevails.

* Through their bluest skies the ground tint is to be discovered.
You can get the most lovely variety of greys in this way, scumbling
lightly a cool tint over the warm preparation ; no opacity, no heavi-
ness, no paintiness, and then what rich greens can be got with this
system ! I cannot conceive a process more adapted for landscape
than this one.'

In the La Caze collection in the Louvre there are several
examples of painting on monochrome in which the process may
be easily followed. An * Interior,' by D. Teniers shows it with
very little work on the brown, and that only in grey. The
brown in this case is very thin raw umber, entirely used for the
first painting, and on this the artist has very lightly scumbled a
grey made of white and black, or white and blue black. There
are also light touches of pure white here and there ; for ex-
ample, on a pot. This picture is catalogued simply as a ' gri*
saille,' but it seems to have been begim according to the artist's
usual method, and with the intention of colour. Another work
by the same artist, * Une Tabagie,' is also begun in raw umber,
wBch is left for the trousers of the man who has his back to the
fire and for the whole of the man in the background. After
this reserve the painter divided his colouring into two concur-
rent schemes, cold and warm, the cool colour being a scumble
in a sort of grey (sometimes violet by opposition), the warm
only the brown foundation intensified, and with one fiery note,
a red cap. The whole principle of this kind of work was to
modify the brown by cool tints in one direction and warm ones
in another. It is astonishing, when we have once carefully
analysed works of this class, how all the colouring in both direc-
tions is derived from the brown, either by cooling or heating,
and how a slight modification will turn the brown to the most
different tints. In faces it is modified into fiesh-colour, in
fields it is just sufficiently greened, but it is really and funda-

thn

iTgh..

Painting in Oil. 259

mentally brown still, if you look well into it. The device of the
red cap was a well-knowTi old artifice, by which the spectator's
attention was taken away from the brown, and he was made to
believe in the eitistence of far more colouring than that which
he positively saw. There is so httle green on many Dutch trees
that it must have faded away and left the, ground visible again,
as we often see it.

There is always a danger in painting upon a decided ground
of any kind, whether brown, red, or grey, which is that in course
of time the colour-work upon it may get lliinner with age and
show the under-painting through it. From this it may be con-
cluded that if we use monochrome as a foundation for colour-
work the monochrome itself should not be disagreeable to the
eye, and not too strongly contradictory of the work above it, as
a time may come when it will show itself again, like the corpse
of Caraccioii after Nelson had hanged and sunk him. There is
nothing more distressing than these reappearances, when the
ground is in itself chilly and dismal, and this is one great reason
why care is generally taken to have it of a golden brown that
will almost pass for colour in itself; indeed, many an admired
picture consists of very little else.

It does not appear that in Flemish or Dutch painting .the
monochrome was ever done in thick, opaque pigments, as
it has been in more recent tircies; the artists were probably
anxious to preserve a pleasant transparency even below their
, knowing that it would show through more or less at all
and still more as the picture altered with age.

We have now to pass from the principles of Van Eyck and
iples to the maturer princijjles of Rubens.

The Van Eyck system of painting may be conveniently re-
membered as that which showed the light of the ground itself
through the colours, the ground being considered the source of
light. In the method of Rubens the hghts of the picture were
rtd on afterwards in opaque colour, and the shadows only were
jparent. This change of method was an immense gain in

26o The Graphic Arts,

tiephnical convenience^ and also in the expression of knowledge
and power. The gain in convenience was due to this, that
there was no longer any necessity for a careful preservation of
the ground or a careful following of a formal design ; the gain
in learned and powerful expression was due to the fax greater
degree of what may be called executive activity in the lights.
In the early style of painting the lights were almost passive
parts of the picture, parts which had been litde painted upon
and not obscured ; in the later style they were no longer pas-
sive, and they were not simply equal in executive activity to the
shades, but iai superior, as in them the artist now put his most
visible energy. Here again let me remind the reader of the
great truth which these technical studies are incessantly teach-
ing us, that they are not simply material affairs but mental.
The change from Van Eyck to Rubens is, in fact, a diversion of
mental as well as manual energy from one part of the picture to
another.

Another most important characteristic of this revolution was
that expression by brushwork, by actual handling, became an
important quality in the art. Early vami^h-painting expressed
nothing by handling ; faces might be made expressive, though
they were generally too placid for that, but the painting itself,
the method of laying on the pigments, was absolutely neutral.
In a word, the technical art was passionless, and therefore not
in itself alive, gaining only a secondary life from the beings that
it represented. A nature so energetic as that of Rubens could
never have rested satisfied with a style of art in which the
manual performance conveyed nothing of his physical and intel-
lectual force. Like a great modern musician, he required an
instrument obedient enough to manifest the abounding life that
was in him. In his manner of painting he not only sets images
before the spectator but communicates himself. In the paint-
ings of Van Eyck the subjects live, in those of Rubens it is the
artist himself who lives.

There has never been a more important change of method

noun

I <■»■'

m^^ blenc

Painting in Oil. 261

this, which I have justly called a revolution. It added in-
calculably to the vitality of works of art, for in quite a new sense
it gave life to the canvas and paint. All painting which has fol-
lowed the main principle of Rubens is living work, because it
shows us the artist actually working before us. Even the ine-
quality in the thickness of the pigments on the canvas, which is
so characteristic of Rubens and his followers, is in itself an ele-
ment of life. His tights were thickly painted, but it was espe-
cially by contrast with his shadows, which were painted very
thinly indeed. This consideration is of consequence, for if both
L'ghts and shadows had been painted thickly, if there had been,
say, an inch of solid pigment on both of them, then the lights
would never have appeared loaded any more than they do in a
smooth mosaic made of thick cubes of marble.

The principle of vivacity was stated in words by Rubens him-
self, for he said it was necessary to lay and leave undisturbed
those characteristic touches that he called ' the distinctive marks
of great masters.'

Hoogstraten, the pupil of Rembrandt, also said how desirable
it was to cultivate vivacity in handling. ' It is above all desira-
ble,' he said, ' that you should accustom yourself to a Uvely
mode of handling, so as to smartly express the different planes
or surfaces (of the object represented) giving the drawing due
emphasis, and the colouring, when it admits of it, a playful free-
dom, without ever proceeding to poUshmg or blending, for this
annihilates feehng, supplying nothing in its stead but a sleepy
constraint, through which the legitimate breaking of the col-
ours is sacrificed. It is better to aim at softness with a well-
nourished brush, and, as Jordaens used to express it, " lay gaily
the colours," caring little for the even surface produced by
blending ; for, paint as thickly as you please, smoothness will,
^ subsequent operations, creep in of itself.'

Before leaving Rubens it is necessary to take notice of a

ing prejudice that he entertained against the use of white in

He had emancipated himself from the Flemish tra-

262 ' The Graphic Arts.

dition with regard to the lights, but stiD believed it to be neces-
sary to keep shadows transparent from the first. This was a
lingering of tradition in a mind generally independent. It can
easily be demonstrated that there was a fallacy in this great
artist's reasoning about white in shadows. He used white
grounds, therefore there was white, the white of the ground,
under every shadow that he painted. It may be presumed that
he did not consider the white of the ground a * poison * beneath
his shadows, since if he had thought it injurious he would have
taken the precaution to paint upon dark grounds. We may
even argue that Rubens used white grounds because they had
a good effect under shadows, for they kept them transparent by
shining through the thin colouring he used in them. He cer-
tainly did not use white grounds for their effect in the lights, as
the early Flemings did, since, as he loaded his lights, it signified
very little what sort of a ground lay under. His prejudice did
his work no practical harm, but it was theoretically wrong, be-
cause it did not take into account the principle of recovery^
which in the mature art of oil-painting is of the highest possi-
ble importance. There is no difference, in final result, between
using a white ground in shadow and painting it with white at a
subsequent stage of the process, if only such painting be cov-
ered with a transparent glaze. Artists not less eminent than
Rubens have admitted white very freely into their shadows with-
out considering it * poisonous ' at all, only taking the precaution
to combat its objectionable opacity by subsequent glazes, more
or less rich and deep, by which they obtained any degree of trans-
parence that they needed. Eastlake observes that Rubens could
not, and did not, dispense with white in light reflections ; and
I may add to this that his rule was more applicable to the
painting of figures, which are generally seen near, and to other
foreground objects, than to effects of distance such as landscape-
painters have to deal with. Whenever much atmosphere inter-
venes, although air is in the ordinary sense very transparent, a
certain degree of what artists call opacity must inevitably exist.

^^^c

Painting in Oil. 263

A piece of solid slate or granite in the foreground has more of
the quality, in shadow, that painters call transparence than water
has in the distance, and you may represent the shaded pans of
slate or granite with considerable force and accuracy by means
of transparent colours only, whereas you will need the opacity
of white to give truth to your distant sea ; and so in mountain
shadows, without a certain degree of opacity they would lack
distance, and the more they are remote and. pale the more do
you need white in them, or some light pigment approaching its
body and opacity.

It may be convenient for the reader to remember that Van
Eyck, by the adoption of an oil-vamish as a medium, gave to
painting a transparence and a brilliance, and to artists a possi-
bility of tranquil and deliberate labour, which were not com-
patible with methods previously known. The quality won by
Rubens was manual accent or vivacity. The powers so gained
aie not merely of archaeological interest, they have become a
part of the tradition of painting, and are preserved to this day
in much of the best modem work. It must be remembered,
too, that Rubens continued the old Flemish practice of using
varnish in painting, and that this practice has also survived to
our own times. Entire objects, such as trees, are sometimes
painted very thinly in his pictures, whilst more distant parts arc
in thick impasto. In the autumn view of the Chateau of Stein •
the pollard willows near the brook are thinly painted, but the
water and ground seen between them ate heavily loaded.

Rembrandt painted in the most different styles ; in his mid-
dle manner with dehcate finish and almost even surfaces, in his
latest with great rapidity and very rough surfaces indeed. He
liked decided superposition better than blending, ' As the prac-
tice of Rubens,' says Eastlake, ' was not to blend the colour
much with the tint that was next it, so the method of Rem-
brandt was not to mix the superadded pigment with what was

iderneath it, except m final operations, when, to conceal the
* In our National Gallery.

264 ^^he Graphic Arts,

art, the brush was allowed here and there to pbagh deeply.
Mansaert remarks that Rembrandt rarely Uended his colours,
laying one on the other without mixing them.' As Rembrandt
was a great etcher he was by no means afraid of the accent
given by lines that go in different directions ; and, whether he
thought about it or not, he would feel that the brush-marks in
painting answer to those lines of the needle when it shade^.
The mature style of Rembrandt with the brush goes on the
principle of showing the work, and of influencing therspectator
by letting him see how the artist actually applied the colour.
This is not objectionable, but the contrary, so long as such a
frank manner of painting is sustained by the requisite knowl-
edge ; but when, as often happens in modem times, the knowl-
edge is insufficient, it does not afford a decent cloak for
ignorance. A smoother and more laborious method makes
cruel exposure far less to be apprehended.

The invention of oil-painting was of the greatest use to Rem-
brandt, as without it he would never have expressed his genius
adequately in colour. It gave him full opportunity for that
depth and penetrable quality in the penumbra which he liked
so much, and which he could not possibly have attained in any-
thing like the same degree either in fresco, tempera, or water-
colour. The enormous importance of technical matters in the
fine arts is shown by this, that the mention of Rembnuidt and
fresco in the same sentence at once awakens a sense of incon-
gruity so striking as to be almost ludicrous. Had he been com-
pelled to paint in fresco and to engrave with a burin the artist
whom we know as Rembrandt would have been lost to us.
His name, if known at all, would have had other associations,
but the chances are that, with means of expression so opposed
to his idiosyncrasy, he would have remained permanently
obscure.*

* Rembrandt's system of light and colour was extremely arbitrary,
and it will not bear the kind of criticism which refers everything to na-
ture, but it was cunning to the last degree with reference to those results,

Painting in Oil. 265

Italtan painting proceeded from the first on principles very
different from those we have just been sHidying. The early
Italian artists passed from tempera to oil whilst preserving the
habits acquired in tempera. They painted very carefully and
equally, filling up delicate outlines with much accuracy, and
even down to a later period, when the art of painting is popu- .
larly supposed to have reached its full maturity, they retained
in a great measure the habits which belong to its infancy. I
have no hesitation in saying that, from the technical point of
view, Raphael himself never came to maturity as a painter.
His early manner, as everybody knows, was extremely primitive,
but even his later manner, his latest, was only primitive painting
developed a little farther in tJie same direction, with more ac-
complished manual skill. Raphael advanced with great rapidity
as a draughtsman, and brought the art of drawing, as he under-
stood it, to a sudden maturity, but his painting did not advance
at the same rate, and the only rational account of him is that
he was a draughtsman who painted his drawings delicately. All
early Italian painting, and very much that is not called early, is
only painted drawing, in which the design is coloured exactly
on the same principle as the coloured woodcuts made at Epinal
for children, though of course with far superior skill. If the evil .
of this were limited to the work done it would matter but little,
for painted drawing is very pleasing when it is good in its own
way ; but unluckily, the great Italian names have over-awed

often quite independent of riatural truth, that the artist himself desired.

Without being a trinhful colourisi he was an extremely skilful one. Paul

Chalmers used to say, ■ People have not half recognised the wonderful

colour of Rembrandt. See how he !»lioots orange through his reds vfhere

the light strikes, and interfuses yellows and greens through each other

until you cannot tell what the colour is.' This priociple of representing ^J

a natural colour by the play of several different strong huea put side by ^H

aide was at one time very much adopted by the Scottish school, and some- ^H

I times with good effect, but it is a dangerous principle to act upon, and ^H

I AA Md) work ought Eo be done instinctively, in the heat of iDSpiraition, or ^H

Hflbtat at alL It cannot be plotted and schemed for. ^|

366 The Graphic Arts,

modem critics and prevented them from recognising a distinc-
tion that stares them in the face.

The painted drawing of the Italian masters has none of the
characteristics of painting in its full maturity. Instead of having
that rich variety of surface that Rubens and Rembrandt appre-
ciated, it is smooth and regular except where small touches
stand in relief, as on jewels. The accent of brush-work is simply
absent, the artists had not thought of it as a possible force, and
although the colours are often bright and arranged in large
patches with great care and taste, they are always colours, in
the plural, and not colour in that synthetic sense which the real
colourists have taught us to attach to the word. The following
qualities certainly belong to the best Italian work, such as that
of Raphael, Andrea da Solario, and others.

First, exquisitely delicate linear drawing, far more idealised
than the Flemish, sharp outlines everywhere united to careful
modelling with imperceptible brush-work in flesh, beautiful ar-
rangements of light things and dark things, not so much what
we call light and shade as light and dark by local colour. Such
shading as there was belonged rather to modelling than to chi-
aroscuro. As to colour, the treatment of it is very peculiar,
And quite independent of natural truth. Suppose that the artist
had to deal with a piece of red drapery like the red dress of
the Virgin in Raphael's Holy Family in the Louvre. What
Raphael actually did was this : He made the red of the dress
whiten in the light, as if the light really bleached it where it
fell ; the red is not lighted, it is expelled. In the shaded parts
of the same drapery the red preserves its full chromatic quality
without loss from privation of light. So with the blue drapery
on which the Child is lying. In the light it is a faded blue, in
shade a full blue without any chromatic loss. This is not all ;
there is a landscape distance, with buildings, and the lights upon
them are white whilst the buildings themselves are blue in
distance; in nature, a group of buildings sufficiently remote
to be turned blue like a mountain certainly would not take

■ CtOKet

Painting in Oil. 267

white lights.* All this colouring is founded upon a false prin-
ciple, which is that colour may be dealt with lilce black and
white. If you are drawing in charcoal you may omit local
colour if you choose (though it is better not to omit it), and
then, having made that sacriiice, you may make the light parts
of your draperies all white together, like the draperies on mar-
ble statues ; but if you are working in colour you cannot prop-
erly or legitimately expel colour at will to get a greater gamut
of light and dark. This erroneous system of colouring was,
in fact, a continuation of the habits of a draughtsman after he
liad taken up a palette. Unluckily it set a bad example, and
the commercial pictures of saints made for the Church of Rome
are all coloured on those principles to this day. They are as
false in the darks as in the lights, for in nature colours are not
extinguished in light, but they do really lose chromatic intensity
in shadow. They are greyer and duller in places where there
is not light enough to see them by.

The painting of Raphael's time was a representation of objects
with a clear explanation of their colours, but without regard to
visual effect. On a refined and idealised drawing the men of
that school carefully mapped out the spaces occupied by the
blue sky and the red or yellow piece of drapery, and filled
them up to the edges where they met, but the art of that time
was in a condition too elementary for the visual synthesis which
is understood by the most accompUshed modems. Even in
Lionardo da Vinci the art of painting is still in a primitive state.
He gave the most painful labour to his pictures, and they were
little more than very highly -finished drawings, admirable in
form, with most careful modelling, but destitute of a painter's
comprehensiveness of sight as of a painter's sleigjit of hand.
We know how dissatisfied Lionardo always was with his own

* When 3 city is remote enough to be blue in distance, it does not
lights of any bind, but a flat, lights and shadows being all mingled
The only enceplion is the flashing of the sun's rays from glass
which may. by accident, give a sparkle somewhere on a skylight.

368 The Graphic Arti,

work ; perhaps the nobility of his genius made him dimly aware
that the art of painting ought to be more than mere drawing in
oil, however perfect in finish.

M^rim^e says that the Roman and Florentine schools always
painted upon a monochrome foundation, and mentions pictures
by lionardo and Fra Bartolomeo at Florence which were left in
their first stage. They are drawn m line with the brush and
shaded with a bituminous brown, as drawings on paper used to
be shaded with bistre. In short, it was the combination of line
and wash.

This was not the practice of the Venetians, who began with
thick colour. Utian's way of painting has come down to us
through Boschini, who knew the younger Pahna, whose father
had received instruction firom Titian himself. Boschini says
that Titian ' based his pictures with such a mass of colour that
it served as a base to build on after.' He also says that red
earth was used in the early paintings, besides white, black, and
yellow. The red earth was probably what is now called light
red, or it may have been Venetian red.* We do hot know
which yellow is intended, but it is quite possible that it may
have been one of the common varieties of yellow ochre, as
that would be sufficiently brilliant for a dead colouring in which
the brightest red used was only an earth. Readers who under-
stand painting will be struck with the absence of blue; but
black and white, used in cold greys, would do duty for blue in
a first painting so fair as coldness is concerned, and this absence
Of brilliant hue in ,the cold extremity of the scale, as well as in
the hot red, can only strengthen the supposition that the yellow
was not a brilliant one, as there must always be a certain relation
among the colours on a well-ordered palette, and a very bright
yellow would have been out of place in this one. From the
evidence that we have, we may consider it to be ascertained
that Titian's first paintings (Boschiai speaks of four ' pencillings '

* The true Venetian red is said to have been a native ochre. That
which we use is artificial.

Painting in Oil. 269

done in this way) were massive in substantial quantity of pig-
ment, but exceedingly simple in their colouring. When the
first stage was completed, Titian laid the canvas aside for sev-
eral months, and on resuming work upon it amended and
corrected all the forms. Then came his long finishing process.
He glazed everything. M^rim^e said that he did not know a
single picture of Titian which was not glazed from one end to
the other, even in the highest lights. He also applied opaque
colour over and over again, rubbing it on the canvas with his
thumb and fingers, which Palma said that in finishing he pre-
ferred to his brushes. In this way, by firequent retouches,
which were to the solid substance beneath what the down of a
peach is to the skin of the fruit, he gradually gave to his works
that bloom and perfection of rich surface which they have
always preserved till now, unless in those cases where the deli*
cate thin surface applications have been removed by the care-
lessness of cleaners. This is nearly all we know about Titian's
practice. It would have been interesting in the highest degree
to know the exact colours that he used, but here the universal
carelessness about technical matters which has prevailed since
art began reduces us to simple conjecture.

In Titian a certain kind of painting reached its full perfection.
His work is not coloured drawing, like that of the Romans and
Florentines, but really the expression of a painter who under-
stood the full technical value of his materials. A good Raph-
ael, a good da Vinci, gives us the pleasures of idealised drawing
and noble composition, but a fine Titian gives us the pleasure
of good painting. The artist himself had a natural faculty for
the delight of the eye, as a person gifted with musical genius
has for the delight of the ear — he cultivated the gift and com-
municated this kind of enjoyment to all who are capable of it.
All good painting whatever is an expression, not of hard knowl-
edge, but of the eye's delight Titian's painting is to the ocu-
lar sense what a rich old wine is to the sense of taste. It
appeals very littie to the soul or the intellect, but it gratifies, it
satisfies, the noblest of our physical senses.

2/0 The Graphic Arts,

It is very narrow in range of elTect, and the effects that it
does represent are scarcely natural. Titian supposed a golden
twilight for his landscapes and draperies^ but he represented his
figures, his carnations, as if in the clear, warm light of an in-
terior on a summer afternoon. I mean that you see the faces,
arms, and hands, much more plainly than you would see them
in nature if the landscapes and draperies were as dark as Titian
represents them. He had a perfect right to use this license,
by which he gave more brilliance and importance to his flesh,
without being obliged to sacrifice the fulness of its colour. He
painted on coarse canvases, firom preference, because he found
that they were very favourable to broken edges (soft at a dis-
tance), which he greatly preferred to hard outlines, and also
because the coarse threads caught the pigments well when he
desired a crumbling surface. He painted flesh over and over
again, till the thickness of the colour gave it as much smooth-
ness as he wanted, and it was not his custom to load flesh, but
he would load elsewhere (on costume or furniture) in modera-
tion where he felt it to be desirable. Altogether, his painting
was abundantly rich in matter, in which it differed very widely
from the earlier art. We ought clearly to understand that, not-
withstanding the beauty of Titian's colour, his paintings would
not have been half so delightful as they are if he had not
known the value of rich surfaces.

Correggio avoided hard outlines with great care, going, in-
deed, to the extreme of softness, so that they are hardly trace-
able close at hand. In all things he had the conceptions of
a painter rather than- those of a draughtsman. He did not
load his flesh, which is carefully modelled with the brush, but
he loaded a little in accessories. He rather liked coarse can-
vases, but did not care to have them of an excessive degree of
coarseness. He went farther than Titian in the study of subtle
and evanescent effect, and approached more nearly to the
technical conditions of modern painting, though with a degree
of manual skill which has not been rivalled in modern times

k

Painting in Oil. 271

except by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Giorgione was much more
substantial than Correggio, but still truly a painter, in the strict
sense, like Titian, whom he resembled in some respects, espe-
cially in his moderate use of loading.

We have a clear though brief account of the method fol-
lowed by Paul Veronese. This account comes to us from the
painter's own son through Eoschini. His way was to paint
everything first in middle tint, and on this he touched both
lights and darks, leaving the middle tint visible everywhere be-
tween them, as it was first prepared. The middle tint was laid
in opaque colour. M^rim^e afi!irms that Veronese often worked
on canvases primed in tempera, and also that when he did so
he began his picture in water-colour. Veronese must have
laid his middle tints with uncommon certainty as to hue, if he
really always preserved it so carefully as Boschini says he did.
The reader will at once perceive how radically different this
practice is from that of Titian, and how much greater a degree
of tonic accuracy it required in the earlier stages of the work,
for Titian was constantly correcting all his tones, whereas Vero-
nese, at a certain early stage of the picture, considered the
middle tints to be definitely settled. Veronese, in fact, when
the picture had reached that stage, would look upon it very
much as a sketcher in white and black chalk looks upon his
tinted paper, which is to be left visible in many parts, but
heightened or deepened wherever light or dark accents may
be necessary. It is a most convenient way of painting, and
one admirably in harmony wilh the appearances of nature,
where we constantly see lights and darks on middle tint ; but
there is one practical objection, namely, the extreme difficulty
of getting the true middle tint which is required. This in-
volves the necessity of an intellectual process, for the eye of
the painter, unaided by his mind, would be certainly unequal to
the task. Ocular imitation would never discover the true middle
tint, because without an intellectual caution the eye would be too
much perplexed by the extreme lights and darks. The intellect

2/2 The Graphic Arts.

must intervene to perceive the average, just as it is only by an
intellectual process that we can ascertain arithmetical averages.

Paul Veronese, like other great Italian masters, was fond of
painting on very coarse canvases, on account of the richness
of surface which they give when their qualities are made the
most of. The Vision of St Helena, in the National GaDery,
engraved by Mr. Stocks for this volume, is on one of the
coarsest canvases in the collection. This was especially use-
ful in the drapery which Veronese indicated with broad catch-
ing touches. In the face the texture of the canvas is less
conspicuous, yet even here it is strongly felt.

It is a question of the greatest interest whether the Italians
used varnish in their painting, when actually at work, or whether
their pictures were only varnished afterwards. The probability
appears to be that they used a sort of pomatum, very like our
modem megilp, composed of oglio cotto {huile cuite, cooked
oil), mixed with a certain proportion of gum varnish. The oglh
cotto has been known in Italy so long that no record of its
origin is preserved.* It is simply nut oil, boiled down with as
much litharge as it will dissolve, until it resembles the con-
sistency of honey. This is mixed with varnish till it makes a
pomatum which will stay on the palette without running. Lanzi
says that during the restoration of a picture by Correggio, an
analysis was made of his materials, and a conclusion arrived
at about his medium to the effect that he employed two-thirds
of oil and one of varnish. M^rim^e ascertained from certain
wrinkles in a picture by Giorgione that he must have employed
an oil varnish, as none but an oil varnish would wrinkle. That
varnishes were well known in Italy in the sixteenth century is
proved by Armenini's book, which gives receipts for making
them. Field, however, sajrs that it has been an opinion of

♦ It cannot be the same as the huile grasse used by the students under
Delaroche, which consisted of linseed oil boiled with litharge, for that is
now considered a very dangerous vehicle, as pictures painted with it have
cracked terribly.

Painting in Oil. 273

eminent judges — and he seems to share the opinion — that
the Venetians only employed oils and varnishes as preservatives
and defences of their works, and not as vehicles ; the vehicle
which they are supposed to have used being water with certain
additions, probably including borax, which is the true medium
between water and oil, and he asserts that ' portions of their
decayed pictures have been readily fluxed by fire into glass.*
These different opinions only show the obscurity of the sub-
ject and the remarkable absence of definite information. It is
wonderful that so little should be known, but it is the more
wonderful since eye-witnesses have positively attempted to give
an account of the Venetian methods and stopped short before
their tale was fully told, and that neither from inabihty nor un-
willingness to tell all, but simply because they did not foresee
what we should care to know about, or else took it for granted
that we should be inevitably acquainted with all that belonged
to the common practice of the time.

I do not intend to follow Italian art, even firom summit to
summit, down to the present day, not only firom want of space
but because painting in Italy has not a continuous history.
Imagine some distant region, uninfluenced by European immi-
gration, where a race of men, autochthonous, had reached their
own civilisation, their own physical stature and mental develop-
ment, without the lessons of the foreigner. Suppose that this
race, after long ages, had dwindled and fallen away from its high
attainment until hardly anything remained to it but a tradition
of past greatness — a greatness remembered by tradition and
perpetuated by material works, yet no longer adequately under-
stood. Finally, the old civilisation is entirely replaced by a
new one introduced by foreigners and practised at first in a
crude and vulgar manner by untrained imitators who have for-
gotten the culture which should have belonged to them by
descent and have not yet assimilated that which has come to
them by importation. This is the condition of modem paint-
ing in Italy. It has nothing to do with the great Italian art of

18

274 ^^ Graphic Arts.

old. It is as young and raw as anything that is done in tiie
United States of America. It is a fresh importation, like loco-
motives in Japan, and the great old artists of Italy are as iar out-
side of it, and have as little advice to give about it, as a daimio
of the sixteenth centiuy with regard to a/ Japanese railway.

Of the elder French painters I need not mention those who
foUowed Italian methods, even though they wrought as soundly
as Nicolas Poussin. The placid temper of Claude prevented
him from acquiring any of that vivacity of handling ^Hiich we
find in Rubens and Rembrandt, and which Frans Hals carried
to its extremest limit ; but although Claude does not put much
life into the touches of his brush, the serenity of his style is
generally quite in accordance with the serenity of the natural
effects that he preferred. Either by happy chance, or by some
law of nature not yet distinctly formulated, it generaUy so hap-
pens that the st}'le of a painter is in unison with his choice of
subject* A painter of quiet afternoons will paint quiedy, a
painter of stormy effects in romantic scenery wiD display some
boldness and even recklessness of manner. Frans Hals, the
most Wvadous of all painters, seized upon li\^ly, transient action
and expression; Clouet, a cool observer, patient and dear-
minded, painted people who seem as if nothing could disturb
diem, and the style of Clouet's bnish>work is as deliberate as his
sitters. Claude was not so minute, and he did not cling to the
drawn line, like the early masters, but he worked in die peace of
die unexcited artist, expressing with gentle industry his ideal
of a land of beauty. His method — never had painter rooie of
method than he — was to proceed steadily firom large spaces to
small ones, painting the large first broadly and then the small
ones upon them, gradually approaching finish by added work in
diin opaque colour and by moderate and prudent glazings.
Nothing could be more rational than such a maimtf of work,
and the result is pleasing but not li^-ehr. It gives the idea of
sustained good heahh in the artist but not of fire or passion.

After Rubens, Watteau is technically one of the livdiest of

K.

Painting in OH. 275

painters. His work is fiiK of technical charm, and when you
analyse it you find that the charm is due to two causes, first his
love of evauescence, and secondly the rare skill with which he
touched with one tint upon another. Few artists, even amongst
colourists, have paid so much attention as Watteau did to the
relation between ground-colours left visible and the touches
afterwards Idd upon them. In his system of work everything
was settled by the ground-colouis, the upper touches coming
afterwards in an inevitable manner like the notes towards the
conclusion of a phrase in music. His work was so light that in
other hands it would have been flimsy, but there was no flim-
siness m Watteau because the thorough soundness of relation
between touch and ground prevented it. His ground-colours
were semi-transparent and very open in texture, never shut
against you like a door, and they were brushed very freely over
the first sketch. Then catne those touches, firmly yet delicately
applied and never disturbed afterwards, which gave animation
to the whole, and in which no man ever excelled him,

Velasquez had a greater mind than Watteau, but not a more
skilful hand. Nevertheless he, too, was one of the painters of
evanescence. His ground- colouring was more substantial than
that of the French pointer, but his after-work was light and
summary in the extreme. Not"hing in painting better exempli-
fies the progress from the infancy to the maturity of art than
the way in which painters have dealt with hair. The early
Germans tried to paint it in detail with the inevitable result of
losing the effect of mass, and of making the individual iiaiis
twenty times as tliick as they ought to have been. Such paint-
ing as that was neither beautiful nor true. Then came an inter-
mediate state of things, when masses were represented in the
lump but hairs were represented separately at the ends, the
masses being like lumps of black modelling wax and the hairs
like entangled threads. Finally, as painting reached maturity,
.'0- was perceived that the individual hairs were too small to be
iled and that the masses were quite diiTerenl in quality from

2/6 Tfu Graphic Arts.

everything else in nature, that the light-and-shade on them, and
in them, was as peculiar as the light-and-shade of clouds, yet of
a different kind, and that they could not be dealt with like other
substances. Velasquez carried these ideas into admirable prac-
tice, and in him the art reached its full maturity. Nothing
could be more simple than his brush-work or his colouring, but
it was the simplicity of perfect accomplishment. There is no
clinging to a hard outline in his work, no childish insistence on
trifling details ; he gives you the dark eye, the clear complexion,
the bloom on the cheek, the sheen and shadow on the soft hair,
the rich quaint dress, yet all without tiresome amplification.

I have several times had occasion, in the course of this chap-
ter, to speak of what may be called * painted drawing,' and to
contrast it with the art which in the strictest sense is painting,
I do not know anything which deserves the name of painting
more entirely and decidedly than the work of Velasquez at his
best; I mean such work as his portrait of Philip IV. in our
National Gallery, or that lovely child-portrait in the Louvre, the
Infanta Margaret. The most finished performance of Raphael,
the Garvagh Raphael, for example, in the National Gallery, with
its porcelain flesh, its hard outlines, its bright yet commonplace
colours, is quite young and immature painting in comparison.

•

Here, for the present, we must pause in our examination of
actual performance in painting, because we are approaching the
modem development of the art, and to understand that develop-
ment it is absolutely necessary that we should know something
about the materials. Even the old masters themselves cannot
be understood without a knowledge of matter — of pigments,
canvases, varnishes — but it was possible without entering much
into these details to give some idea of the early progress of the
art so far as execution was concerned. For the sake of clear-
ness I now propose to recapitulate the chief points which have
been touched upon, only too cursively, in this chapter.

I. Oil- varnish painting began with varnished tempera pictures
which were enriched in colour by transparent tints mixed with

Paintiiig in Oil. 277

-flie vamish. The next step was to reject tempera, and to shade
a delicate drawing with transparent brown, leaving the lights
either white or very thinly glazed with a pale brown shade. On
this, when dry, the artist carefUCy painted in colour, with vamish
for a medium, and he kept hia painting very thin in the lights
to preserve brightness there from the white gesso of the ground.
This kind of painting may be associated with the name of the
brothers Van Eyck. It is brilliant, and lasts long, but it is a
primitive method.

Afterwards the shaded parts of the monochrome were kept
and little painted upon, but the light parts were painted
^pon freely in thick opaque colour. This kind of work is bril-
liant also, and it has the advantage of displaying the energy of

,e artist in handling, which tlie first does not. It is associated

ith the name of Rubens.

3. The brown of a highly-finished, delicate, and transpareut
monochrome might be so modified by thin paintings in other
colours as to be greened, reddened, &c., with very httle labour.
The brown would be itself a part of some colours by showing
through them, and it would support others. This principle is
the foundation of much Flemish and Dutch work, and may be
remembered in connexion with Teniers.

The whole of the canvas might be painted over with a
nearly equal thickness of smooth painting on a ground of trans-
parent monochrome, observing a careful drawing in all its lines,
and developing careful modelling in the coloured work. This
may be associated with the name of Raphael. It is beautiful
when combined with beautiful drawing and composition, but it
is a primitive kind of painting.

5. The whole of the canvas might be painted with ^ sub-
stantial dead colour in broad masses, omitting all details and
delicacies of drawing, and on this dead colour preparation of
sober tints the picture might be brought forward gradually by

iccessive paintings, richer and richer in colour, and at last it
;ht be finished with rich glazings and dragging and loading

2/8 Tfu Graphic Arts,

of thick colour catching on the threads of the coarse canvas.
This kind of painting is not immature, it is not a primitive
method, not painted drawing, but the art in its ripeness. It is
associated with the name of Titian.

6. Especial care might be taken, by an artist who had the
rich means just described at his disposal, to avoid hard outlines
and flat surfaces, so as to get still farther away from linear or
decorative drawing. We find this desire realised in Correggio.

7. All the middle tint in a picture might be painted first in
substantial ground-colours, and both lights and darks might be
painted afterwards on the middle tint. By this analysis, which
divides the work to be done into three main divisions, it would
be considerably simplified, and there would be an economy of
labour, as the middle tint would remain untouched over a great
part of the canvas. The only objection is the difficulty of rightly
ascertaining what middle tints to use, as they cannot really be
seen in nature with the eyes, but must be ascertained by intel-
lectual analysis. It is a very advanced method of painting, and
was that of Paul Veronese.

8. A painter in the full maturity of the art might represent
objects with an extreme simplicity, and yet, by consummate
knowledge, convey a truer idea of their qualities than an in-
ferior artist could with far greater labour and far more abundant
detail. We find this learned kind of realism in Velasquez.

9. A painter who worked in a time of very advanced art might
find a new charm in the delicacy of his touches on ground-
colours carefully prepared to receive them. He might delight
the eye by the perfectly harmonious relation between the ground
and the touches by which it was not hidden but relieved, and
he might awaken interest by the skill and vivacity with which
the touches themselves were placed. This, with a special taste for
evanescence, would describe the technical qualities of Watteau.

The distinctions marked in the foregoing paragraphs are of
importance, because it will be found that the greater part of

painting in Oil.

279

modem work is derived from one or other of these modes
of practice. Some new technical practices have been intro-
duced during the nineteenth century ; and when we come to
■n they shall have the share of attention they deserve, but
P several good and sound methods of painting have long since
reached full maturity, and whoever desires to adopt them, or
one of them, will find the whoie craft ready to his hand in the
practice of some old master.

All painting may be first broadly divided into two categories,
the mature and the immature. If the painter follows a finished
linear drawing so as to have no freedom with his brush, and if
the touches of his brush are without executive expression of
their own, his work is immature, whatever may be the beauty
of its design or the perfection of its modelling. It may be valu-
able for different archaeological or even artistic reasons, but it is
not painting yet, any more than a caterpillar is a butterfly. It
is, however, the kind of art which precedes the perfect develop-
ment of painting.

The mature kinds of painting chiefly interest us now, when the
art is old and fully ripe. Rubens, Frans Hals, Titian, Correggio,
Veronese, Velasquez, Watteau, are all mature men in art, yet
they differ widely from each other. It is not desirable that any
of their complete methods of painting should ever be finally
discarded, because the variety of idiosyncrasy amongst artists
requires some liberty of choice, and it is well that there should
be haJf-a-dozen good systems of painting to choose from. Still,

E if one were asked whether amongst the seven artists just named
there is a choice of greater or less completeness in method, the
Suiswer would have to be that Rubens is a slighter painter than
Titian, because the shadows in Rubens are more meagre, and
even his lights less sustained and mellow. Watteau, again, is a
slighter painter than Velasquez, and Veronese is more bound to
his outlines than Correggio, so that of these mature painters
there are three who have a richer and fuller maturity than the
Others.

J

28o The Graphic Arts.

11. — Materuls.

Before passing to an examination of modem methods, we
have to examine the materials of oil-painting. First, let us
think about the formation of a palette.

All the pigments are usually ground in oil, and kept ready
prepared in compressible tubes of thin metal, made without a
joint and closed by being pinched with flat pincers at the bot-
tom. These tubes, which are made from discs of soft tin by
a very ingenious machine combining the principles of stamping
and elongation, are one of the greatest conveniences belonging
to the modern practice of art. The old masters had to be con-
tent with pots of colour for large pictures, and with bladders for
smaller ones, both occasioning much trouble and dirt.

Pigments may be ground with more oil or with less, and the
consequence of the difference is very important in its effect on
painting, for if too much oil is used iii the grinding it is impos-
sible to get that stiff and solid impasto which some modem
artists delight in. Some painters always ask for stiffly ground
colours. It is generally an advantage to have them, for if the
artist finds them inconveniently stiff he can thin them himself
with oil, but if they are too thin they cannot be so conveniently
thickened. This is done, however, to some extent by spreading
the colour on blotting-paper, which drinks up some of the oil.

It is a matter of extreme importance that all the pigments
used in painting should be thoroughly well ground. If they are
not, they are only fit for large and coarse work. Nobody could
possibly paint like Gerard Dow with ill-ground colours, and if
there had been no good grinding in the world there wpuld never
have been a Meissonier.

Some pigments in their natural state are in such fine impalpa-
ble powder as not to require much grinding ; others are naturally
coarse, and require a great deal. The colour-makers get over
this difficulty for us, and give us all pigments as nearly as pos-

Paintinz in Oil. 281

%i

sible in the same state. Nevertheless, in spite of all they do,
there will ever be a difference, and the practical consequence is
that the pigments we have to employ will not all behave in the
same manner. Some are naturally coarser than others ; some
enter well into combinations, and others badly ; some have what
is called good body, of which others are almost destitute ; and
it is only after long acquaintance that we learn their different
peculiarities.

There are great differences of density in pigments, and if
there is anything like uniform density in painting, it is because
most of the pigments are mixed with white for opaque work,
and with some sustaining varnish medium for transparent. Still,
even as it is, the unequal density of pigments is an inconven-
ience.

They are still more unequal in power — I do not mean in
apparent strength and intensity, but in the purely material effect
of colouring other pigments by mixture. For example, Prussian
Blue is a very strong colour, and so is Cadmium Yellow ; that
is to say, that a little of these colours will go a long way in mix-
ture with weaker ones, and it is necessary to use them with
caution, because they will always be liable to do more than is
required. On the other hand, a weak colour, such as Terra
Verte, is easily overcome in mixture.

Another great inequality is in the durability of pigments, and
this is the most serious objection of all, for different degrees of
density or strength affect only the artist, and there are ways of
overcoming these inconveniences, but difference of durability
concerns the purchaser as well ; and if once a fugitive pigment
has been used in a picture the balance of colour in the work is
sure to b^ ultimately destroyed, for the pennanent colours will
remain and the fugitive will fly.

There are several very cogent reasons why fugitive pigments
should be excluded from the colour-box. It is dishonourable
to employ them, because the buyer supposes that he is investing
in a durable work. The use of them is a kind of suicide on the

282 The Graphic Arts.

part of the artist, because he is thereby ensuring the future de-
struction of his own performance, and leaving his fame to rest
on a ruin. Lastly, the picture into which they have been
allowed to enter will not fade away equally, like a camaieu,
which would only be a half evil, it will be destroyed in places,
as if by the ravages of local disease, so that all its harmony will
be gone.

These results are as certain as the consequences of blood-
poisoning ; yet many artists have been, and many others still
are, quite absolutely reckless about the durability of their works,
and this is what they say to excuse themselves : They say that
in the present condition of society, when industry is divided
into special departments, it is not possible for an artist to secure
himself against adulteration, and consequently that it is of no
avail for him to be particular in the* selection of his colours.
They have no confidence in their colourmen, and, if they had,
they say that there would still be ample reason for distrust, as
the colourmen themselves cannot answer for the purity of the
materials they purchase. The result is a state of despair about
ever finding trustworthy materials, and as despair is proverbially
a bad adviser, these artists, who have no desire to be dishonest,
and as little to plant destructive agents in their own works, like
dynamite in a ship, are doing it daily out of sheer hopelessness,
helplessness, and recklessness.

Others are trying hard to find some means of rendering oil-
painting a safe and permanent process. To this end three
things are necessary — durable pigments, a safe medium, syid a
prudent use of both. For the pigments and the medium we
have to look to chemists, and especially to the Professor o»
Chemistry at the Royal Academy, whose office it is to place
sound and disinterested scientific knowledge within the reach of
artists. For the use of materials artists can only refer to the
practice of their predecessors, imitating those whose works have
wasted, and avoiding dangerous examples.

There is an element of safety in using few colours, because a

Painting in Oil. 283

few may be more thoroughly understood than many. If a
palette could be composed of a very few pigments, that we
could rely upon, there would be no necessity to try any more
hazardous experiments, and the whole question would be settled
for ever. Could not this be done? Is there any reason why it
should not be done at once?

The answer to these questions is, unluclcily, that a simple and
a complete palette are not always precisely the same thing, and
that it is of no use offering an incomplete palette to painters,
because they are sure to complete it in their own way, with the
help of the ever-ready colourmen. There is a tendency amongst
unpractical writers on art to exalt the merits of simple palettes
and common materials, because it gives them an opportunity
for spealtiog contemptuously of modem artists who require bril-
liant and various colours. Unfortunately, Sir Joshua Reynolds
gave some countenance to this sort of criticism, not at all by
his practice, as we shall see presently, but by an ill-considered
written sentence, in which he spoke favourably of the ancient
Greeks for using an extremely limited palette. ' Another cir-
cumstance/ he says, ' that tends to prejudice me in favour of
their colouring, is the account we have of some of their princi-
pal painters using but four colours only. I am convinced the
fewer the colours the cleaner wUl be the effect of those colours,
and that four are sufficient to make every combination re-
quired.' ' There never was a more unpractical observation. It

• Reynolds shared the common opinion, entirely falladous, that the
more pigments we use tlie more they will get mixed, and he argued in
favour of few pigments that ' two mijicd together will not preserve the
brightness of either of them single, nor will three be as bright as twa'
The argument is sound enough, but it tells precisely in the opposite
direction. The truth is that when few pigments are used they must be
often mixed to get a variety of tints, whereas when niany are used it is
not 90 often necessary to mix them, and this is absolutely the tjest reason
for baring many pigments, as by their help the tints are brighter than
mixtures of three or four pigments ever can bo. The necessity for mix-
ture may, however, often be avoided by putting one colour over another
intlead of mixing the two together, and the result is more brillUsA..

284 The Graphic Arts,

may be true in theory, that three primitive colours will generate
all others, though men of science are not agreed as to which
colours are the primitives ; but in practice, with the materials
we have to use, it is not possible to make a complete palette, or
anything like one, with four pigments. It is necessary to prove
this point before going farther into the subject. The error is
continually cropping up. I find it stated in Gilchrist's Life of
Etty that he could paint with only four colours : * with three
colours and white — an5rthing approaching to a yellow, a red,
and a blue — he could produce a sweetly coloured picture.'
From this it was deduced that only inferior artists desired a
better furnished palette.

I have no desire to imply that the statements about the
ancient Greeks and Etty are in themselves untrue. A picture
may be painted with four colours, and if the subject of it is
carefully chosen, so as to lie within those limited chromatic
means, their narrowness will not be severely felt ; but it is quite
untrue that any four pigments known to chemistry * are suffi-
cient to make any combination required,' or that it is a mark of
inferiority in an artist to want more ample materials.

The four pigments used by the Greeks in their pictures are
said (on the authority of Pliny) to have been Wliite, Yellow,
Athenian Ochre, Red Ochre from Sinope, and Black. This list
corresponds very closely with the palette used by Titian for his
dead-colour. He, too, used white and black with a red and a
yellow. We know that the red was an ochre, and therefore
may infer that the yellow would be an ochre also, for harmony.
There is, however, a great difference between using an extremely
simple palette for a preparatory dead-colour, and the use of the
same palette for the whole work of the picture. ,

The true test of a palette is the imitation of nature. What-
ever may be your artistic ability, you will be quite unable, with
the palette, just described, to imitate either an orange, a lemon,
or a rose. Titian himself could not have done it, because it is

material impossibility which no amount of science can over-

Painting in Oil, 285

come. The red and yellow ochres are not bright enough to
produce orange, yellow ochre is not pure enough to imitate a
leiiion, the red of ochre bears no resemblance to that of the
rose. And how, with the cold grey of black and white, are you
to render the azure of southern skies and waters ?

Those who have no practical experience of colouring always
answer that everything can be done by oppositions when the
artist has full command of his materials. Much, no doubt, can
be done by contrast, but not everything. You cannot tiuii
Yellow Ochre into Lemon Yellow, nor Ivory Black into Ultra-
marine, nor Red Ochre into Rose Madder, by any opposition
which the narrow Grecian palette would place at your disposal.

Now let us suppose that, instead of being bound down to the
pigments used by the Greeks, we have full liberty to choose
pigments of our own. Could we not get all intermediate hues
if only we had three primaries and white ? The difficulty in
practice would be to get anything like the primaries ; and, in
the first place, we do not exactly know what the primaries are.
The common theory is that they are red, yellow, and blue ;
MaxwelPs theory is that they are red, blue, and green; and
amongst men of science, who experiment with rays of light,
Maxwell's theory has gained ground very rapidly. We will
stick to the common theory, however, for the present, because it
so happens that it seems to accord better than the other with
the powers of mixture belonging to the materials in our posses-
sion. We can make green by mingling blue and yellow, but we
cannot make yellow at all by mixture, we must get it pure at
first, so the old theory, though possibly quite erroneous if con-
sidered with reference to absolute truth, is good enough as a
guide in practice.

Red, yellow, and blue — but which red, which yellow, which
blue ? The first thing to be noticed in all scientific treatises on
colouring is that the colours in their wheels or triangles are
never alike. One man gives rose-colour as the primary, another
a sort of carmine, and a third something like the red of a com-

286 The Graphic Arts.

mon soldier's coat In one diagram the yellow inclines to
lemon^ in another to orange ; in one the blue is pale, in another
very much darker. Amidst this confusion the only certainty
appears to be that if we choose any pigments we shall be told
that we ought to have chosen others. Here, then, are two
proposals : —

1. White, Aureolin, Rose Madder, real Ultramarine.

2. White, Strontian Yellow, Vermilion, Cobalt.

Either of these palettes would have a great advantage in bril-
liance over the Grecian, but it would not be practically more
complete. They would afford you greens and oranges not to be
got out of the Grecian list of pigments, but they would not sup-
ply the place of the earth-colours ; they would not give fine dull
yellows like the ochres, nor good dull reds, nor rich browns, nor
a good black. There are a multitude of sober tints in Rem-
brandt and Velasquez which these two brilliant palettes would
be quite unable to imitate.

The truth is that if we set theory aside and turn to experiment
instead, which is our only safe guide in a matter of this kind,
we shall be immediately driven to the conclusion that a palette
of four pigments can never have sufficient range to cope with
the various colouring of nature. The palette must be harmo-
nious, to begin with ; there is no escape fh)m that ineluctable
necessity ; the colours must be such as will form a true chro-
matic scale of a certain definite kind ; therefore, in a very lim-
ited palette the colours select each other by affinity. The lists
given above (including the Grecian) are harmonious, but they
are not complete. The dull palette could not render the bright
colours of nature in flowers and skies, the bright one could not
render her fine dull colouring in earth, fur, and flesh. If com-
pelled to choose between the two a colourist would take the dull
old Grecian palette, because with that he would easily translate
all nature into half-colour, but with bright pigments only he
would be painting in crude superlatives exceeding the temper-
ance of nature.

Painting in Oil, 287

When full colour is not an object a valuable restricted palette
may easily be arranged with five pigments, three to represent
(in some measure) the primaries, and white and black. The
best selection is the following well-known one : —

Flake White — Yellow Ochre — Cobalt Blue — Light Red —
Ivory Black.

With these you cannot paint all things truly, but you can
suggest full colour to the mind, and produce works having the
same relation to the colouring of Nature that a silver-point
drawing has to her light-and-shade.*

After comparing the experience of many artists, and carefully
making many experiments in my own laboratory, I have arrived
at the conclusion that it is not possible to form a complete
palette with less than nine pigments. The elements of such a
palette must inevitably be brought together on the following
principles, and you will invariably find that all artists who have
attempted full colour (including Reynolds himself) have been
compelled to act upon these principles. They may be despised
and neglected in theory, but they make themselves qbeyed in
practice.

Taking the pigments as we have them, we cannot do without
white. In theory it would answer the same purpose to dilute
other colours and make them paler, in practice we require the
full body of white to give a substantial appearance to near things
and atmosphere to distant ones.

Black is not indispensable in a numerous collection of pig-
ments, but it is valuable in a small one.

We cannot do without two yellows, a dull one and a bright
one. Yellow Ochre imposes itself of necessity. Every palette
which is intended for general painting and not for some special
purpose must include a dull yellow earth of some kind. A
bright yellow is equally necessary in full colouring because a
dull yellow mixed with white only gets lighter and not brighter.

* This very siiAple palette is excellent for the first painting of a pic-
ture. It is quite surprising how much may be done with it

288 The Graphic Arts.

Yellow Ochre and White Lead will never make the colour of
the primrose.

The choice of the bright yellow has always offered some
difficulty. Many artists have tried Chrome, but it is now dis-
carded because it blackens. Reynolds used Orpiment, not an
eligible colour either, as it has a bad effect on some other col-
ours in mixture, and is itself destroyed by White Lead. Some
modem painters have used pale yellow Cadmium (not pale
orange), which is powerful and of a good body, but it is dan-
gerous on account of the great temptation to adulterate it with
something cheaper and less durable; a dishonest colourman
would probably adulterate it with Chrome.* The choice seems
to lie between Chromate of Strontia (Strontian Yellow) and
Chromate of Baryta (Lemon Yellow). Both these are said by
the chemists to be quite trustworthy, and Linton says that the
Strontian Yellow is of the true prismatic hue.

Two reds are as necessary as two yellows, but for a different
reason. As we have Yellow Ochre already, we can easily imi-
tate the ochrous reds by its help ; so it is not a dull red that
we want, but there are two entirely distinct families of red which
must have representatives. They are represented amongst flow-
ers by the geranium and the rose, in pigments by vermilion and
lake. The cochineal lakes, made from the cochineal insect, are
fugitive and ought not to be used ; the madder lakes are be-
lieved to be permanent, and are certainly preferable to the oth-
ers. Vermilion, like pale Cadmium Yellow, is much exposed
to adulteration, but in its pure state is said by Field to be * per-
fectly durable and unexceptionable.* f Rose Madder and Ver-
milion are, therefore, our necessary reds.

* Mr. Holman Hunt employs Cadmium, but is careful to reject the
pale varieties.

t * It is true, nevertheless, that vermilions have obtained the double
disrepute of fading in strong light and of becoming black or dark by
time and impure air ; but colours, like characters, suffer contamination
and disrepute from bad association: it has happened, accordingly, that

Painting in Oil. 289

1 1 pause to answer a probable objection. Many prac-
J readers may say that they have not found Vermilion to be
ry, and have not often employed it. This is very likely,
with a palette supplied on the unrestricted principle with all the
red earths, but nobody knows the real utility of Vermihon who
has not painted with a Umited palette. When you have very
few colours it is constantly required for its power of redding
ochre, making purples with blue, and neutralising greens. It is
chosen in preference to one of the red earths, because in mix-
e it can supply their place, whilst not one of them can supply
s place in the chromatic scale.
With regard to blue, there would be no hesitation if genuine
Ultramarine were not so costly. Its place may be supplied by
the best artificial ultramarine ; that of Guimet, their original in-
ventor, is said by M^rim^e to be absolutely identical in hue with
the natiiral lapis lazuli, but this is not quite strictly accurate, for
Guimet'B blue inclines too much to violet. The artificial Ultra-
marine prepared by Messrs. Zuber and Co., of Rixheim, is said
}sy Mi. Linton to have the pure prismatic tint.*
I ' Some painters, especially landscape-painters, would prefer

vermilion wliich has been rendered lakey or crimson by mixture with Jake
or cannine, has faded in the light, and that when it has been toned to the
scarlet hue by red or orange lead, it has afterwards become blackened in
impure air, &c., both of which adulterations were formerly practised, and
hence the ill'fame of vermilion both with authors and artists. We there-
fore repeal that neither light, time, nor foul air effects sensible change in
true vermilions ; and that they may be used safely in either water, oil, or
fresco, being colours of great chemical permanence, unaffected by other
pigments, and among the least soluble of chemical substances.' — Field's
Ckromatiigrapky.

• Mr. Wyld rejects French Ultramarine on account of its hue, and
Mr, Holman Hunt rejects it from a suspicion about its permanence, as be
has noticed a chemical change. I used French Ultramarine in early prac-
tice, and do not observe any chemical deterioration. The reader mill
meet with more al>out this pigment in the course of the ehaplcr. Mr.
Calderon excludes French Ultramarine and uses Antwerp blue in its
F Jflace.

290 The Graphic Arts,

Cobalt to artificial Ultramarine if they were forced to choose a
single blue ; but if you have a good Ultramarine the qualities
of Cobalt may be very closely imitated by mixture. Cobalt
inclines to green and Ultramarine to violet ; both generally re-
quire correction in actual use.

With a blue, a black, and two yellows, we can get many
greens, especially as we have two reds by which they can be
modified at will ; but with the pigments already mentioned we
could not get all greens. It is therefore necessary to complete
our palette by the addition of some strong and sound green
made ready to hand. We have it in the Emerald Oxide of
Chromium, which is one of the safest known pigments when
not adulterated. Field says that it is 'durable both against
the action of the sun*s light and impure air.* In a restricted
palette it becomes of the utmost importance, and is the sheet-
anchor of the greens as vermilion is of the reds. A distin-
guished living landscape-painter says that in his art there are
two principles, the red and the green, and that it is chiefly the
opposition and interchange of these two which constitute the
colour of landscape. It is therefore well for a landscape-painter
to see that his palette is strong on these two points.

In theory we ought to be able to get a brown easily out of
the pigments already mentioned, but in practice we want a
richer and purer brown than we can make, not only for itself,
but to modify our sober mixtures and darken our yellow earth.
There are several to choose fi*om. Vandyke Brown has often
been used in a limited palette, but Cappagh is more to be rec-
ommended, being a better drier. Burnt Umber is objectionable
because it is often heavy and foul in mixture.

Our limited palette, of nine pigments, now stands as fol-
lows : — White — Black — Yellow Ochre — Strontian Yellow —
Vermilion — Rose Madder — Ultramarine — Emerald Oxide of
Chromium — Cappagh Brown.

Very likely the reader may think that I am insisting needlessly
upon the arrangement of a limited palette when it is so easy

Painting in Oil. 291

other pigments, and so be rid of this necessity for

;treme carefulness in choice. ' Why take so much trouble to
.choose a few pigments that will do the work, when by taking
plenty we are sure to find what we require amongst them?'

The answer is, that limited palettes are the best instructors
in colouring, because they teach us, far better and more effect-
ually than a great number of pigments ever can do, the wonder-
ful effects of mixture. An artist who has used everything that
came in his way will find a limited, but well-selected palette, a
revelation ; it will teach him, in the clearest way, the uses and
values of the few colours that he has, and there can be little
doubt that the real reason why the colouring of the old painters
Js often so masterly is simply because they had very few pig-
itnents, and so came to understand them thoroughly. I have
said that nobody knows what Vermilion is till he has worked
with it on a hmited palette ; but I might say as much of every
pigment in this Utile catalogue of nine. The reason is that
there are no inactive pigments amongst them ; they all have to
■work, and the artist watches them at work, helping each other
See so many obedient and friendly Uttle &.iries, and so he comes
to know them, and love them, and esteem them for the wonder-
fiU things they do."

These nine, with wise direction, can do everything ; they
form a palette which in its vast scales and unlimited combina-

" I ought to answer, in this place, a very common objection to a lim-
ited palette of this kind. It is said that the trouble of mixing must be
*cry great, as a]moat every tint is a mixed tint. 1 can nasurc the reader,
both irom my own experience and from that of more able artists, that no
such trouble is felt in actual practice. In a very short time the artist
mixes his lints quite unconsciously, and the advantage of-having a palette
which is at the same time very limited in the number of pigments, and
yet chromatically complete, is that the painter has never 10 think about
the colours he requires, because he knows they are all there. When he
has thirty pigments in a box to choose amongst, llicn he has to think and
combbe. especially if some of his colours arc destructive of each other
lically, as Orpiment is destroyed by White Lead and Emerald Green

I

I

k combine, espi
(ihemically. a;
Wf Cadmium.

292 Ttu Graphic Arts.

tions is chromatically complete ; but as there are many other
valuable and quite trustworthy pigments which may render
more useful service, there is no reason for rejecting them, unless
you are anxious to put your whole chromatic instrument into a
very little box. It would be hard to part for ever with such
dear and faithful old friends as the two hennas. Raw Sienna
is a lovely colour in many a combination, useful in many a rich
green and quiet gold ; Burnt Sienna is good and sound also,
and an excellent drier, yet somewhat dangerous as a temptation
to strong autumnal colouring. It is rather provoking to have to
choose between artificial Ultramarine and Cobalt, because they
are to a certain extent complementary of each other. These
additions bring us to the following very valuable palette of
twelve pigments : —

White — Ivory Black — Yellow Ochre — Strontian Yellow —
Raw Sienna — Burnt Sienna — Vermilion — Rose Madder —
Cobalt — artificial Ultramarine — Emerald Oxide of Chromium
— Cappagh Brown.

But, as my purpose is to bring the reader gradually forward
from simple palettes to complex ones, by adding each time the
pigments most immediately desirable after those already men-
tioned, I now proceed to arrange a palette of eighteen pig-
ments, which leaves us to choose six additional ones.

In the palettes already given we only get orange by mixture.
It may occasionally be a convenience to have it ready. Orange
Cadmium is an excellent pigment in itself, of good body, and
considered to be durable, but in the hands of imprudent colour-
ists it is dangerous on account of its great strength, as it easily
overwhelms other colours in mixture and spoils tints Uke an
infection. Light Red has hitherto been excluded only because
its effects are got so easily when you have Yellow Ochre, Ver-
milion, and a Brown ; but it is an excellent old pigment, and
must of course be admitted in a box of eighteen. We had
already two blues. Cobalt and artificial Ultramarine, but there is
a lovely grey blue, of unquestionable permanence, which may

Painting/ in Oil.

293

Ho
^^ pro

I tigl

1

Ori

arti
I ofC

tab-

I wor

^^^ -ately

admitted now, the valuable Ultramarine Ashes, made from

refuse of lapis lazuli. We had Rose Madder, and may now

Id Brown Madder, which was a pet colour of Field's, who

id, ' It is of a pure, rich, transparent, and deep russet colour;

a true middle hue between orange and purple ; not subject

*> change by the action of light, impure air, rime, or mixture of

other pigments.' Terre Verte is a perfectly safe natural green

ochre, holding the same place amongst greens that the yellow

and red ochres do amongst other colours, but it has far less

body than they have, and can more easily be dispensed with.

However, in a well-supplied colour-box it is a valuable addition,

provided that it be the real diing and not some coppery substi-

It has been hard to keep out Raw Umber so long — one

f the most delicate of al! the earths — 'lovely Raw Umber,' as

•femuel Palmer used to call it. So now we have our box of

eighteen pigments constituted as follows 1 —

White — Ivory Black -^pllow Ochre — Strontian Yellow —
Orange Cadmium — Ra\^Seana — Burnt Sienna — Light Red
— Vermilion — Rose Madder — Madder Brown — Cobalt —
artificial Ultramarine — Ultramarine Ashes — Emerald Oxide
of Chromium — Terre Vcrte — Raw Umber — Cappagh Brown.
If, beyond this, a painter desires to go up to twenty-four pig-
still do so with perfect safety. Strontian Yellow is
near to Lemon Yellow in hue that it has not been thought
worth while to include Leraon Yellow yet, but there is not the
slightest objection to its use, so a pale kind may be taken, to
differ from Strontian as much as possible. We have not yet in-
cluded the pigment called Venetian Red, a preparation from
sulphate of iron, permanent and useful. We may admit a third
preparation of madder. Deep Madder. If we care to have
another green, there is Cobalt Green, provided that it is got of
an honest colourman, as it can be imitated by unsafe mixtures.
Real Cobalt Green is ' an original pigment prepared immedi-
■ately from cobalt with aiidition of oxide of iron or zinc, of a
very powerful green colour, and durable in both

294 The Graphic Arts.

water and oil, in the latter of which it dries well.' So says
Field, and Linton includes this green amongst permanent
colours. We may now indulge in the luxury of a second Emer-
ald Oxide of Chromium, darker than the other, but having the
same chemical qualities; and, finally, we may admit Burnt
Umber, which is often good as a basis to work upon, and very
available in mixture (in small quantities) with some transparent
pigments and the opaque earths, but quarrelsome with white,
and liable to impart great heaviness to a picture if used inju-
diciously. Sound and durable as Burnt Umber is from the
chemical point of view, it is a dangerous colour chromatically,
and has done great harm, especially in the French school

Our palette or box of twenty-four pigments is now made up,
and stands as follows : —

White — Ivory Black — Yellow Ochre — Strontian Yellow —
Pale Lemon Yellow — Orange Cadmium — Raw Sienna — Biunt
Sienna — Light Red — Venetian Red — Vermilion — Rose Mad-
der— Madder Brown — Deep Madder — Cobalt Blue — arti-
ficial Ultramarine — Ultramarine Ashes — Cobalt Green — Light
Emerald Oxide of Chromium — Dark Emerald Oxide of Chro-
mium — Terre Verte — Raw Umber — Burnt Umber — Cap-
pagh Brown.

All these pigments are safe if unadulterated, and the palettes
or boxes are arranged in sequence, so as to take up the most
desirable pigments after those mentioned in the shorter preced-
ing list. The reader may, however, be surprised by some
omissions. He may ask why such a well-known pigment as
Naples Yellow has not been mentioned. It is rejected by Lin-
ton as being 'readily affected by sulphuretted hydrogen gas,
by light, and by moist iron.' Field forbids us to touch Naples
Yellow with a steel palette knife, which is a practical incon-
venience, and he says that it is not to be relied upon in practice
if used in heterogeneous tints and mixtures. He only recom-
mends it if used pure or with white lead. These objections are
sufficiently serious, but there is another — the extreme facility

i^

Painting in Oil.

295

■with which what we call Naples Yellow is imitated or adiUterated.
The results of strict chemical testing have been eloquent enough
in this respect, and I certainly would not recommend any one
to use a so-called Naples Yellow until a competent analyst had
satisfied him that it was the real thing. It is not an indispen-
sable pigment, for with White, Stronlian, and Yellow Ochre, you
are quite independent of it. Several other tempting yellows are
easily mjured by Ught or impure air, Orpiment is injured by
combination with white lead, and Patent Yellow by gas. We
should adopt a good transparent yellow with great pleasure, as it
is a desideratum, but the old Yellow Lakes are fugitive, and it
appears now that Yellow Madder is not to be relied upon.
Aureolin has been offered as a substitute, a delightful pigment
to use, but too recent an introduction (in this year, i8Si) for
me to be able to recommend it confidently. It is a great pity
that Indian Yellow should be fugitive in oil, but so it is, to an
extreme degree.

Of reds not mentioned in my lists, I may say that Red Lead
is rejected because it fades in mixture with white lead, but it
might be used pure occasionally in those very rare occurrences
where its bright hue might be useful in small quantities. The
cochineal lakes are al! rejected together, without hesitation.

It is hard to have to reject Prussian Blue, because it is such
a delightfiilly rich colour. ' It is of a deep and powerful blue
colour," says Field, ' of vast body and considerable transparency,
and forms tints of much beauty with white lead, though they are
by no means equal in purity and brilliancy to those of cobalt
and ultramarine." Besides these merits, Prussian Blue has two
others not to be despised : it is very cheap, and an excellent
drier, but it does not last. Field says that Jt ' has the singu-
lar property of fluctuating, or of going and coming, under
some changes of circumstances, which property it owes to
the action and reaction by which it acquires and relinquishes
oxygen alternately, and time has a neutralising tendency upon
its colour.' Linton rejects it decidedly as ' not to be depended

296 The Graphic Arts,

upon.' Indigo is another tempting blue, powerful and pleasant,
but fugitive and quite inadmissible. Blue Ochre would be valu-
able as a quiet blue to go with the other ochres, but it is too
rare for the ordinary purposes of commerce.

The copper greens are rejected as not permanent, still M^ri-
mee thinks that the durability of Malachite Green is sufficiently
proved by the permanence of colour in objects made of the mala-
chite stone, which have lasted for many centuries without fading.
This does not quite prove the point, because the same substance
reduced to powder and mixed with oil might change in conse-
quence of minute division and mixture. Linton says that
Malachite Green 'becomes greener and darker in oil,' and
rejects it accordingly. If this darkening is only moderate in
degree the evil is not great, as pictures darken all over ; but this
green, though pleasant to use, is not indispensable, as its hue is
easily imitated with the pigments already at our disposal. It is
much to be regretted that Sap Green, which is used in water-
colour, should not be available in oil, but it is extremely fugitive,
and not to be thought of.

There are plenty of good browns to choose from, and if the
reader prefers it there is no reason why he should not use Cas-
sel Earth instead of Cappagh. Vandyke Brown is good, but it
dries slowly, and in drying becomes very dull and opaque.
Asphaltum is quite permanent chromatically, and a most tempt-
ing pigment for its charming golden colour when used thinly,
and for its fine transparence in greater depths. It is a natural
product, a sort of * mineral pitch or resin found floating on the
Dead Sea ; * and it would have been happy for art if it had ever
remained there. Horace Vemet was very fond of asphaltum,
and you may see it to this day trickling down his canvases like
treacle.* In other men's pictures it often shows itself by gaping
fissures an eighth of an inch wide, - sometimes much wider in

* I have removed undried asphaltum with a pocket-handkerchief from
a picture by Horace Vemet more than twenty years after the picture was
painted.

Painting in Oil. 297

large works Tchere the pigments have been laid on thickly, and
the judicious reader does not need to be told that this peculiar
craqudi neither improves the colouring of a picture nor its
drawing. Notwithstanding these well-known consequences, the
attraction of asphaltum is so great that men who have once
addicted themselves to it can hardly ever be persuaded to leave
it off. It is like opium- eating, or chewing tobacco, a personal
vice indulged in for a soothing pleasure. The victim of asphal-
tum desires the transient happiness of rich and comfortable
tones, over which his own eyes may gloat whilst he is at work,
and from which his own mind may receive a selfish, temporary
consolation, careless of the wreck to come.

The reader may have noticed that in the lists of pigments
hitherto given in this chapter, white is mentioned simply, with-
out any indication of its chemical composition. I desired to
reserve die question about the choice of a white until the last,
because it cannot be so briefly disposed of as the other materials.
Oil-painting depends upon white for its appearance of solidity,
for that vigorous relief which makes oil-painting the most sub-
stantial of all the grapliic arts. This quality, powerful as St is,
might be sacrificed if too dearly purchased, and a flatter, flim-
sier kind of paindng accepted in its place ; but soUdity is not
the only quality that we owe to the presence of white. In land-
scape it stands for light and atmosphere, and though we might
perhaps be content to give up the substantial appearance of a
rock or a tree-tnink, we cannot sacrifice the brightness of the
sky and the remoteness of the distant horizon. I could give
the name of a successful living painter of the figure who rejected
white absolutely many years ago, and has done without it ever
since ; but I never heard of a landscape-painter who did with-
out it.

So far as pleasantness in use is concerned white lead is per-
fection.* The purity of its appearance, its fine strong body,

* White lead, or ceruse, and other white oxides oE lead, onder the
varioDS denominations of Landon ami NMiitghaiit Wkiki, &C., Fb^

•1

298 TAe Graphic Arts.

its power of drying, and the readiness with which it enters into
combination with so many other pigments, make it delightful to
artists. Unfortunately, it has one fault, it is not really perma-
nent <is white, it turns to something else and then remains per-
manently in its spoiled condition. It is classed amongst
objectionable colours by Linton, who says that it is blackened
by the gases which * in a greater or less degree are common to
most domestic atmospheres,* and that * if oil be used in excess,
the pictiire will degrade to a yellow or foxy hue ; but when the
white lead is not overcharged with oil its deoxidation becomes
more evident, the colour it assumes being that approximating to
metallic lead itself.' Mr. Twopeny, an amateur landscape-painter
of remarkable ability, who knew much more about materials
than the majority of professional artists, and who attached es-
pecial importance to light and atmosphere in landscape, rejected
all the white leads without hesitation. * The changes of white
lead and linseed oil,' Mr. Twopeny wrote in the Fine Arts
Quarterly Review, * are rapid and inevitable. A foul tawny
yellow quickly overspreads the work, utterly destructive of deli-
cacy and freshness in skies, distant mountains, water, &c. Let
it not be supposed that we are adopting any hasty prejudice
against white lead and linseed oil derived merely from some
misuse of them. They have always been fatal to these essentials
of landscape.' Mr. Twopeny himself employed a kind of white
invented by Mr. Wilkins, which he believed would be perma-
nent, but I am not able to give its chemical composition, and
only know that its extreme slowness as a drier prevented its
adoption by artists.

Certain precautions against the changing of the lead whites
are recommended to painters, but I do not repeat them here,
from a settled conviction that no painter in the heat of success-

White^ Crems or Cremnitz White^ Roman and Venetian Whites^ Blanc
d^ Argent or Silver White, Sulphate of lead, Antwerp White, &c. The
heaviest and whitest of these are the best, and in point of colour and
body are superior to all other whites. — Field's Chromatography,

Painting in Oil. 299

fill work win ever be persuaded to adopt an irksome precaution
for a scientific reason. The precaution should be taken earlier,
when pigments are chosen.

Zinc White has the reputation of being ' the only permanent
white of any value to the artist.' There are two other perma-
nent whites, made from baryta and strontia, but they have not
body enough, and Zinc White itself is so inferior to Flake Wliite
in this respect that few artists can be persuaded to employ it,
whilst those who do so for a while from conscientious motives
generally abandon it afterwards.* Simply as a matter of duty,
and not with any hope of being listened to, I must say that
landscape-painters ouglit to employ Zinc White exclusively.t
If painters of the figure use Flake White the consequences are
less to be dreaded in their works, but they should warm their
white and give it oil enough, as it ts better for it to turn yellow
than to blacken. r

Few things better show the conservative effect of oils and
varnishes than the possibility of using the whites of lead at all.
They cannot be employed in water-colour, because they turn
black, nor in fresco, pastel, or distemper. It is, however, always
necessary to remember that the protecting power of oils and
varnishes diminishes with time, that they get thinner and thinner,
and that unless judiciously renewed they are not to be relied
upon for ever.J

• In the year 1852 Mr. Holman Hunt painted a picture entirely in Zinc
While, which stood perfectly bo £ar as purity was concerned, bnl it be-
came much more transparent as it dried farther in course of time, so that
the outline showed through in many places. Mr. Hunt abandoned Zinc
White because it did not dry fast enough for further work to be added
without danger until several weeks ha-d elapsed. Mr. Calderon used
Zinc While for one picture, 'The Young Ijird Hamlet,' but ila blue, thin
quality was more than he could pat up with, so he never used it again.

f Supposing that it really is Zinc White, and is not adolteraled with
Carbonate of Lead.

t There is a curious proof of the efEect of (he sun on varnish in the
room where I am writing. A piece of carved oak furniture Is SO placed
that one side of it is often in full sunshine and Che other generally iit

300 The Graphic Arts, ^

I have not space to go into any questions concerning the
manufacture of oils and varnishes, and therefore must leave
the reader to consult specialists on that subject. Unfortunately,
the durability of a picture depends in a great measure upon the
quality of the raw materials from which its oils and varnishes were
made. Some English artists, amongst whom Mr. Holman Hunt
has been the most active, are making a serious effort to procure
quite trustworthy materials of all kinds, and this ought not to be
impossible, with the advanced chemical knowledge of modem
times. The Professor of Chemistry at the R!oyal Academy is in
a position to render great services, if artists would only listen to
him, but many of them unluckily are mortals of the careless
kind, indifferent to everything but present wealth and reputa-
tion.

All that need be said here is, that the painters who have made
it a kind of virtue to use only linseed oil, have not much his-
toric precedent in their favour. They are, of course, quite at
liberty to use oil by itself if they prefer it, but the technical his-
tory of the art gives great importance to varnish, and that not
merely as a final protection, but in the actual work of painting.
There is no virtue or vice in the matter, except just so far as the
appearance of the finished work, or its durability, is affected by
the medium employed. A few very simple data are the result
of common experience : —

I. If a medium that dries fast is used in a second painting
over a first painting done with a medium that dries slowly, and
if the first painting is not quite dry, the picture will crack.*

shade. It was varnished about twenty years ago with an oleaginous solu-
tion of copal. This has now entirely disappeared, having been as effect-
ually removed by the sun as it would have been by some powerful detergent,
but the other side has retained its varnish well.

* Besides this there are varnishes that contract in drying more than
others. The tremendous contractile force of gum arabic is well known,
as may be seen in japanned water-colour boxes, the insides of which are
lined with a sort of white enamel which peels off provokingly when gum
is used upon it. So if you varnish a picture with common glue it will

p

Painting in Oil. 301

Whatever the medium employed, there is always a great
difference between real and apparent drying,

3, It is desirable, for safety, that the same medium should be
employed as far as possible throughout.

4, The safest systems of painting are those by which the
canvas is evenly covered in the earher processes, whether thinly
or in more body, reserving inequaUty of thickness for the latest
stages.

S- If the pigments are diluted with a medium, it is a pre-
caution for safety to dilute them equally or nearly so, and not
to have some touches of the brush rich in varnish and others
dry,

6. The admission of water-colour, tempera, wax, or anything
equally foreign to oil-painting, must always be attended with
risk, and unless managed with great prudence is almost certainly
destructive.

7. Thin applications of pigment dry the most thoroughly, and
after thera come thick applications with deep brush-marks,
because these let the air well into the depths of the paint. The
most dangerous applications of pigment are those which are at
the same time heavy in matter and smooth on the surface, like
plasterings with the palette knife. These skin over externally
long before they are dry inside, and the skin retards the drying
afterwards.

twr the paint everywhere. Reynolds began a piciure with wax and
finished it wilh a mixture of wax and copaiva, the second painting being
more contractile than the first the picture immediately cracked. In
1771 he painted his own portrait, and began with water and gum
dragon, then varnished with egg after Venice turpentine, Beechey said,
* His egg vamiah alam would in a short lime tear any picture to pieces
painted with Huch materials as he made use of,' In October, 1772,
Reynolds says that the portrait of Misa Kirk was begun with gum and
whiting, then waxed, then egged, then varnished, and finally retouched
upon that. The drapery in the portrait of Mrs. Sheridan was first painted
in oil, then in was without oil. then in oil and wax; ao 'it leaves the
canvas in masses,' according to Sir W, Beechey.

302 The Graphic Arts.

A few remarks on panels and canvases may close this part of
the subject.

Different woods have been used for panels, the ^vourites
being oak for the old masters and mahogany for the modems.
It is always a mistake to use panel for pictures of considerable
size, and for small ones millboard affords quite as pleasant a
surface, whilst it is more durable. Canvas is the material most
commonly employed, and, on the whole, the best, for although
it does not last for ever, it can be intentionally destroyed when
it has become rotten, without the slightest injury to the picture,
which is then mounted on a fresh canvas and begins a new
lease of existence.

£anv^e§ prepared for oil-painting are of all degrees of
coarseness. In some the threads are so absolutely hidden
beneath an application of gesso that the surface is like that of
a panel ; in others a tissue of comparatively fine texture is so
thinly covered as to leave a catching surface, with what artists
expressively call a 'tooth * in it ; in others, again, the threads are
coarse and strong, and lightiy covered at the same time, so that
the ' tooth * is very powerful and catches all brush-work <mi its
ridges that is not intentionally driven into its interstices. The
grandest painters who ever lived have delighted in these coarse
canvases, and with reason, because they make a hard precision
almost impossible, and naturally encourage a rich style of paint-
ing. Some contemporary painters have a double thickness of
canvas (two canvases on the same stretching-frame) for the
better protection, against damp and accident, of that which
receives the painting ; and one artist protects the back of his
canvases with wood.

. Millboards are employed in England for sketching from
nature, but French landscape-painters now very generally use
littie thin boards of deal or poplar, which are left of the natural
colour of the wood. If the bare wood is found to be too absorb-
ent this can easily be corrected by a coat of size. The advantage
of these is that any country joiner can make them.

M.

Painting in Oil. 303

In the spring of 18S0 I hit upon A little device for shortening
the process of sketching in oil from nature which I have found
practically useful. After dead- colouring the subject with rather
thick opaque pigments, as if in preparation for a picture, I take
a sheet of the thinnest ' moist ' gossamer paper manufactured by
Messrs. Field and Tuer for manifold writing, and lay it upon
the sketch, flattening it gently with the finger. The gossamer
paper is so transparent that the whole of the dead- colouring
shows through it perfectly, and the sketch may be proceeded
witii at once (as if the dead-colouring were already quite dry)
and finished at a single sitting. This process is really more
rapid than water-colour, as there is no occasion to wait even the
length of time necessary for the drying of a wash. The gossa-
mer paper has to be bathed in turpentine for a short time before
its application, to prevent subsequent cockling, which would
occur otherwise from the absorption of oil from the dead-colour-
iog. My practice is to leave the paper steeping in a light meta!
tray whilst I am laying the ground-colour, so that the paper is
ready when required. When the second painting is dry a coat
of varnish removes the very slight degree of opacity remaining
in the paper, which becomes invisible, and cannot be delected
by any one not aware of the nature of the process. It is nec-
essary to paint, in the first instance, upon a smooth and stiff
surface, such as that of millboard or pane!. The process is
particularly useful for skies with few clouds, the sky itself being
painted directly on the millboard, and the clouds added at once
on the surface of the gossamer paper, of course without the
slightest disturbance of the colour beneath. In landscape, for
the sake of greater expedition, the details may be drawn with a
lead-pencil on the paper and coloured at once in transparent
tints with varnish. On this glaze the touches for high lights,
and character, may be laid firmly in. opaque colour and
disturbed afterwards. This gives practically the effect of
paintings without waiting at all for drying. The sketch

304 The Graphic Arts.

will dry afterwards thoroughly in the house, notwithstanding the
gossamer paper.*

It can hardly be needful that I should occupy space in ex-
plaining the common technical terms, such as loading/ ^glazing,'
'scumbling/ and ' impasto.' Loading and glazing we have used
already, but it may be well to define their sense exactly. Lotul-
ing is the use of opaque colour in heavy masses which actually
protrude from the canvas and themselves catch the light as the
mountains do on the moon. Unluckily, at the same time that
every lump of paint has its own light it throws its own shadow,
and the consequence is that a loaded picture, if hung in some
situations, is liable to appear entirely different from anything that
the artist ever intended. Mr. Wyld tells a story of a picture by
him, entitled * Venice at Sunrise,! which was painted in a studio
where the light fell at an angle of forty-five degrees. Horace
Vemet came to see it whilst still on the easel, and expressed
hearty approval, so when it was sent to the Salon there seemed
to be good reasons for expecting that the picture would do
credit to its author. When he saw it there, however, the effect
upon his mind was horror and consternation ! It had been
placed in a narrow gallery with a nearly perpendicular light, and
the water under the sun had been heavily loaded to give the
effect of light and glitter, an effect attained in the studio, but in
the public gallery every streak of paint cast its own shadow
below, and the picture looked like a ploughed field. Vemet then
remarked that the appearance of light should be got by quality
of tone and not by quantity of paint.

There is a vulgar error about glazing which ought to be dis-
sipated. Everybody except artists believes that it consists in

* This process is particularly useful for working in bad climates where
several sittings are not to be counted upon. I wish 1 had known of it long
ago in the Highlands of Scotland, when struggling against a climate
which is at the same time the most interesting to an artist for the magnifi-
cence and variety of its effects and the most tormenting for its frequent
interruption of his work.

Painting in Oil. 305

making a picture look shiny. The word is not used for lliat,
but because a glaze produces llie effect of a piece of stained
glass by altering the colour of what lies beneath. This is done
by mixing a transparent pigment with a medium of oii or varnish
and then applying it with a brush. Some artists, who pride
themselves on a sort of technical asceticism, reject glazing as a
vicious indulgence, and seriously discountenance it. They are
quite at liberty to exclude glazing from their own work, for it is
not an obligation on any one, but the practice is perfectly legiti-
mate if the colours employed are permanent. When Reynolds
found that the ancients knew something about glazing they rose
greatly in his esteem. All the great coloutists have been fond
of glaiing, and some of them, including Titian, have used it
abundantly.

Glazing is more generally available in figure- pictures than in
landscapes, because it spoils the effect of distance by taking
away atmosiihere. It is most useful of all ia dark figure-pictures,
such as the portraits of Rembrandt, where great depth, that you
can see into, is required. In landscape it is of little use in skies
and distances, but is often employed with great effect in fore-
grounds, in foUage especially. It was used with great force by
Linnell and byTheodore Rousseau in forest scenery. Autumnal
forests might, no doubt, be painted without glazing, but they
would probably be crude, whereas with its help the glory of their
colour may be offered without offence. The depth of the dark
hollows under foUage, where the shadows hide diemselves from
the hot sun, and the transparence of green leaves and grass
which have the sunshine in their very substance, are given quite
well by glazing, and cannot be imitated at all in opaque colour,
though of course they may be learnedly and observantly inter-
preted. So with the transparence of near water, such as pools
in mountain streams, a very able painter can suggest it to the
id without a glaze, but glazing allows him to give the very
1 transparence itself. There is another great technical advantage
of glaaing, which is, that it allows a strong contrast

3o6 The Graphic Arts.

between the parts of a picture where it is freely employed and
those where it is employed sparingly or not at all — differences
which require skill and judgment in the artist, as by their excess
they may destroy the harmony of the picture^ but which place
great resources at his disposal.

Scumbling is painting in opaque colours, but so thin that they
become semi-transparent. In French books on painting the
word glacis is sometimes carelessly used fcH* both, and the dis-
tinction is not always observed in England, probably because
*• scumbling ' sounds too technical and uncouth. It is, in fact, a
term employed exclusively by artists, and the general public is
not aware that the process exists ; but who ever desires to possess
clear and accurate notions about painting should be on his guard
against this lack of information, and should especially avoid the
vulgar error of confounding glazing and scumbling together.
They are, in fact, opposite processes. ScumbUng gives atmos-
phere, and glazing takes it away. It follows that scumbling is of
especial use for skies and distances in landscape, but it is also
employed with great delicacy in painting the figure, towards the
last, when the drawing and modelling are there already, but a
certain bloom of surfece is still required. The later processes of
Titian included scumbling on the flesh. It can only be applied
with success on tolerably smooth surfaces, consequently if ground
colours are to be scumbled over they ought not to be full of
strong and deep brush -marks. If they are rough they generally
have to be scraped down.

A very able landscape-painter told me that he had always
found it quite impossible to obtain the quality of skies without
repeated scumblings. The same is probably true of distant
mountains. The danger of many scumblings is that they may
block up the picture and produce opacity.

Impasto is the application of thick and opaque pigments un-
diluted with any medium except the oil they are ground in, and
not too much of that. It differs from loading in being less
prominent and in covering a larger surface. Impasto would not

Painting in Oil. 307

be felt as such if it were smooth and uniform all over the pic-
ture, as in that case nobody would be aware of its existence. It
shoTilil be applied with strong brushes and in a manly and de-
cided manner. It has been used with great skill, and abused
with great eHrontery, in the modem French school during the
second half of the nineteenth century, but the abuse of it ought
not to make us blind to its true value. The great uses of it arc
in giving an appearance of solidity and in favouring vigorous
executive expression. In small pictures it is seldom necessary ;
they may be painted smoothly, with plenty of oi! or varnish,
and little injury will result from the mere smoothness if only the
finishing touches are laid decidedly in their places j but in paint-
ings of considerable size it is difficult, if not impossible, to give
the impression of adequate power without impaslo — I mean
that, without it, the painter does not seem equal to work on a
large scale. The attempt has been made over and over again —
by David, by Benjamin West, and many others, but however
carefully they rounded women's arms and reddened their cheeks,
however elaborately they developed the muscles of their men,
the work itself, the actual performance, seemed as if it had
no stamina. The reason is that impasto, more than any-
thing else, retains the combined impress of physical and mental
force.

All these varieties of technical work affect mental expression.
I may even go further, and affirm tliat the mere choice of a
medium — of linseed oil, varnish, megilp, or turpentine — will
determine, in a ^eat measure, the habits of the artist and the
direction of his tlioughts. Oil inclines men to high finish and
quiet, thoughtful performance ; pure varnish to rapid and bril-
hant sketching, which catches at sparkle, and texture, and all
kinds of accent, but gives less attention to modelling ; megilp
invites to rich glazing, and consequently leads to the preference,
in nature, of those appearances which are best interpreted by
glazmg. Lasdy, turpentine carries the artist's thoughts out of
what b generally called oil-painting altogether, and leads him ta

308 The Graphic Arts.

prefer the dead surfaces and moderate depths diat belong to
fresco.

' Oil-painting/ by which we understand any kind of painting
of which the pigments are originally ground in oil, is, in ^t^
of all the arts in colour, the one which favours the greatest
variety of mental expression, and this is the reason why it is the
art most likely to be pursued extensively in the future, since the
more various the nationalities and the idiosyncrasies of the men
who seek an expression in the fine arts the more will they be
likely to adopt a kind of painting which offers a special ^cility
to each.

ni. — Practice of some Modern Painters.

I propose, in the third and concluding section of this chap,
ter, to offer some explanation of the technical methods of mod-
em painters in oil, beginning with Reynolds, and including
some eminent artists who are still living amongst us and who
have been good enough to communicate to me the details of
their practice.*

It is remarkable that, although Reynolds was one of the finest
colourists of modem times, he should have reserved the colour-
ing of a picture in a great measure for its latest stages. Almost
all our contemporaries begin to constmct their colour from the
very first, laying foundations for it in decided tints. Reynolds
painted first in black and white, or in black and white with a
little red, making, in fact, nothing but a shaded drawing in oil.
This he coloured afterwards by means of scumbling and glazing.
The paintings of Reynolds are therefore really coloured draw-

* Some paragraphs in this part of the chapter are from the Technical
Notes which I contributed to the Portfolio in the years 1875 ^ind 1876,
but, of course, abridged and re-written, so as to be not more diffuse than
the rest of the matter in this volume.

Painting in Oil. 309

tags ; • and it is remarkable that tliey shouid be so, considering
that he was at tlie same time a colourist and a painter of very
great manual skill.

He generally began by painting in light and shade with blue-
black and white, or lake, blue-black, and white. He admitted
blue occasionally into a first painting, the pigment used being
ultramarine, and occasionally he admitted vermilion ; but the
proof that he did not consider his first painting to be in colour
is that he omitted the essential element of yellow. On the
22nd of June, 1770, he being then forty-seven years old, Rey-
nolds says, in his own Italian, ' I am established in my method
of painting. The first and second paintings are with oil or
copaivaf (for a medium), the colours being only black, ultra-
marine, and white.' Then he repeats, ' The second painting is
the same,' Next he explains the finishing : ' The last painting
is with yellow ochre, lake, black, and ultramarine and without
white, retouched with a liille while and the other colours.'
According to this description of his method, Reynolds excluded
both red and yellow till the last.J

We have here the central principle of the method adopted
by Sir Joshua, but there were fi^queni variations in minor mat-
ters. Sometimes he would get his tints by glazing, and at other
times by scumbling. He used very few colours at once, gen-
erally only one colour with white. Thus, when his picture was
in a sufficiendy advanced state to be coloured, he would scum-
ble it at one time with ultramarine and white, at another with
orpiment and white, or yellow ochre and white, or vermilion
and white, or else carmine and white, Vermilion he sometimes

• Not, however, of tlie old linear kind. The monochromes oE Rey-
nolds are paintings without colour, but with a good deal of modelling and
light and shade.

t Copaiva is a Brazilian balsam used in medicine.

X Sir William Bcechcy believed this to be the most approved method
of Reynolds. Haydon, who was not a bad judge of technical matters,
adds the brief note, ' Fine proceeding,' and approves Beechey's note on
the aubjea with the word ' Excellent.'

3IO The Graphic Arts.

used by itself, thinly, as a stain. He always used colours with
reference to the effect of what was beneath them, as it would
show through them. He worked, in short, much less by mixture
than by superposition. He disapproved of excessive mixture,
and the only way to avoid it when you have but few colours is
to lay them over each other and get tints by that kind of com-
bination. Sir William Beechey, in reference to the practice
of Reynolds, even says that red and yellow cannot be used
together, except by a very skilful hand, without destroying in
some degree the purity of both. An admirable colourist wrote
to me in reference to this question : * The Reynolds practice
of few colours multiplies tints by varieties of superimposition ;
hues are thus obtained which no solid tints nor any mere glazing
can approach : there is no kind of yellow which, mixed with
white, will make the horizon of one of Cuyp's amber skies.
Where cleaners have removed Cuyp*s upper painting we see
the silvery painting underneath.*

What were the few pigments used by Reynolds? They vary
in different pictures, but are always few ; for when he adopted
one it was to replace another that he discarded — at least,
temporarily. In 1755 his palette was composed of —

White — Orpiment — Yellow Ochre — Carmine — Lake —
Ultramarine — Blue-black — Black.

This palette was complete enough for his needs as a portrait-
painter at the time, but it is not chromatically complete. The
proof of this is that you cannot imitate all known hues with it ;
you cannot, for example, imitate the hue of vermilion with it,
nor even the colours of the red ochres, neither can you get the
complete scales of green. At other times Reynolds enormously
increased the chromatic range of his palette by the introduction
of vermilion and asphaltum. In one picture, that of * Sir Charles
and Master Bunbury,' he substituted Prussian blue and ver-
milion for black. He took care generally to have a good blue
(ultramarine) , and his sense of the necessity for a bright yellow
is proved by his use of orpiment, which is of very great chro-

Painting in Oil. 311

tnatic vaJtie, though not durable. One of his cliief embarrass-
ments was the series of rosy flesh-tints which he found it possible
to get with lake or carmine, but not with vermilion ; so when
he used vennilion in flesh it was for durability, not colour. A
lake of some sort and vermilion are both absolutely essential
to a complete chromatic scale in painting. Few as were the
pigments employed by Reynolds the necessities of practice
compelled him, as we see, to go far beyond that Grecian palette
of two ochres with white and black which he approved of so
emphatically in theory. He believed that everything could be
done with it, but in his painting-room he had recourse to Lake,
Vermilion, Orpiment, and Ultramarine, for Genius itself cannot
escape from the ineluctable conditions of matter.

According to M^rim^e, Greuze was fond of dead colouring
in full impasto, which he glazed all over, afterwards painting
upon the glaze when it was dry, beginning with the lights and
proceeding gradually to the shadows. He did not stop here,
but finished by subsequent paintings, probably with fresh glaz-
ings between ihem. This account may be true of many works
by Greuze, but there is an unfinished portrait of himself in the
La Gaze Gallery in the Louvre which is begun more lightly.
First the subject was sketched entirely in Raw Umber, on this
the greys were all lightly painted, leaving the effect of the brown
very visible in the shadows where the grey is thin. The mod-
elling of the flesh is firm and its colouring sufficiently full. The
pigments used in this picture are —

White — Black — Yellow Ochre — Vermilion — Raw Umber.

This is a very simple palette, but enough for a beginning of
a head. The brilliantly painted head of a girl in the same
gallery is grounded entirely in Raw Umber and Yellow Ochre
used transparently. The palette for this picture consisted of —

White — Black — Yellow Ochre — Light Red — Lake —
Raw Umber.

Another beginning of a picture contains a brighter yellow,
resembling Naples, and Burnt Umber. I should infer from.

312 Tlu Graphic Arts.

these varieties that Greuze liked a simple palette, bat changed it
according to circumstances. In this way an artist who uses
very few pigments at once may employ a good many at various
times and even in the same picture.

I mention Wilson only for a peculiar kind of touch which
may be found after him in several other English painters, in-
cluding Turner in his earlier works. It was a broad touch of
thick colour laid on for the lights, generally in yeUow, red, and
light greys, and very uneven, intentionally but not very for-
tunately, as it afterwards caught dirt and got fiUed up with
varnish. It is one of the most curious things in the history of
art how these technical mannerisms arise, get propagated, and
are afterwards entirely abandoned. No landscape-painter of
the present day ever uses the Wilson touch, and that not from
any difficulty in it, for it might be imitated with the greatest
facility, but simply because it can only express very primitive
ideas about nature.

Old Crome used coarse strong canvas, like the Venetian
masters, and left it visible in the darker parts of his land, espe-
cially in brown sandy earth, where it helped him to a texture
expressive of broken ground. This coarse canvas was purposely
made smoother in the sky by thicker paint, just as Titian made
his canvas smoother under a face. Crome's lights on vegeta-
tion were touched on thickly, for which also he had ample
authority in the old masters.

Turner's manner of oil-painting is more easily understood
than his complex and original process in water-colour. He
began by grounding the whole canvas in substantial opaque dead
colour, and having got the large masses forward to a certain
point, he hastily sketched intervening masses, such as trees,
small clouds, boats, figures, houses, &c., in a thin glaze or
scumble, just to fix their places, after which he worked upon
them till they were finished. Sometimes, instead of using thin
colour for the sketch, he would block out an object in heavy
paint (as he did with a buoy once at the Royal Academy in ver-

Painting in Oil. 313

milion) and take away its heaviness, when it was dry, by paint-
ing lightly upon it. These processes may be seen in the
National Gallery. In the 'Chichester Canal" the picture is
broadly grounded, the willows to the left have been lightly
sketched in oil, the ship has been sketched across the rough
sky in thin lines, and the upper clouds dashed on fearlessly and
formlessly in ziz-zag strokes of the brush. The reflexions on
the water are hurriedly indicated in the same way. In the
'Petworth Park, Tillinglon Church in the Distance,' there is
first solid colour everywhere, and upon this clouds, distant
church, clumps of trees, deer, dogs, are all very thinly indicated,
as a preparation for future work.

Even when Turner's pictures were finished, there was often
a very great inequality in substance ; you will find in the same
work the extremes of massive impasto, of protuberant loading,
and of slight thin sketching resembling delicate work iu water-
colour. For the combination of substantial and slight work in
the same picture he had authority in some of the old masters.
Even in Titian, whose painting was generally so rich, you will
sometimes find trees thinly painted upon a sky, and in Rubens
this is quite common. Still, in the works of Turner, especially
in the productions of his later years, such contrasts are more
striking. In the ' Bridge of Sighs ' the loading on the place
where the bridge joins the Ducal Palace is a quarter of an inch
thick in rugged white, and this is a small picture. In the ' Bligh
Sand, near Sheemess.' the canvas is rough, but the colour is
applied bo to make it still rougher, and in the middle of the
picture it is heavily loaded. You may find the extremes of thick
and thin painting even in a single tree, where the outer foliage
is a thin glaze of brown or yellowish green, and the masses
nearer the spectator will be represented by heavy smearing of
loaded opaque pigment.

Many of Turner's pictures are combinations of water-colour
and oil, a combination which was also very much practised by
Lance, the painter of still-hfe, and with very brilliant effect ; but

314 ^/'^ Graphic Arts,

in Lance's work it was less dangerous, because he kept his water-
colour thin, the main use of it being to preserve the brightness
of the ground, whereas Turner admitted body-colour. This
will account for the perishableness of some Turners, but it is to
this day a mystery how he made nearly all of them perishable.
They have gone in all ways, they have Haded and cracked, and
unfortunately they have not passed away harmoniously, like
natural decline, but by virulent local diseases.

It is impossible to give Turner's palettes, which probably
varied very much at different times. There is, however, good
evidence that he used certain pigments, such as Flake White,
Chrome Yellow, Gamboge in oil. Rose Madder, and Raw
Umber. Others, such as Vermilion, are easily recognisable in
his pictures. He painted on white grounds, but the colour
of the ground was not of very great importance in his case, as
he used a substantial first painting. Everything that he did is
interesting on account of his poetic feeling and great powers
of imagination, but from the technical point of view it is difficult
to conceive a more unsatisfactory transition than that fi'om the
sound old masters in the National Gallery, the men who painted
for posterity, to the unsound Turner collection.

The reader may find amongst the Stothards in the National
Gallery an excellent proof of the value of technical soundness.
The picture entitled 'Nymphs discover the flower Narcissus,*
is a lovely piece of colour. The canvas was first rubbed over
very thinly indeed with the brush, then touched upon thinly, or
rather brushed delicately, in opaque pigments, and finally loaded
so as to produce a rough surface even in the lighted parts of
flesh, all the handling being of that peculiar richness whict
Reynolds so much appreciated. The little picture is as fine
as a Titian, and, I believe, probably quite as durable, whereas
another work by the same artist, * Nymphs binding Cupid,* is
utterly ruined by asphaltum. Like Titian, Stothard thoroughly
understood the value of a rough canvas. In the * Mark Anthony
and Cleopatra,' the Cupids are lightly painted on a rough

Painting in Oil. 315

canvas, and it does them no harm. Even the back of the
female figure is uninjured by it.

Constable was technically a very accomplished painter in oil,
and though an innovator in some things (but still more in his
way of seeing nature than in his technical work), he studied the
old masters with great advantage, learning from thera what was
necessary to the formation of his own original style. That style
varied in different works, and has been greatly misrepresented
and misunderstood on account of his habit of making rough
sketches in oil on a large scale, which have often been sold as
pictures. I have no doubt that these sketches, though they
have injured Constable's reputation, were excellent practice, and
had a good effect upon his art by giving it great comprehensive-
ness. His 'Cornfield,' in the National Gallery.is finely painted,
and superior to ' The Valley Farm,' but of the Constables easily
accessible to the public, I tliink the ' Salisbury Cathedral ' is, on
the whole, the most completely and satisfactorily representative
of the painter's technical excellence. The soft sky passes away
imperceptibly into cloud with repeated scumbles and glazes, and
though rather heavily loaded in the lights, it is still aerial. The
trees are managed with great art. If the reader has access to
the picture, he will not fail to observe the very great variety of
colour in these trees, and also of light and dark, the beautiful
evanescence of the thin leaves against the sky, the strong touches
of light for leaves against dark spaces, the clever opposition
of light and dark branches and the fine sylvan forms without any
tight or hard drawing anywhere. The thick toiiches of broken
colour on the lights were made to catch dragging, as in Turner,
but not being so misty or so powdery, bear a nearer resemblance
to nature. The field is beautifully painted. Observe the value
of the rather coarse canvas and the rough paint in explaining
the varied character of the field as the sun catches the grass,
and think how difficult it would be to get anything like such a
result with smooth, equally applied pigments. The same may
be said for the cathedral, the lights on which arc loaded acd
give admirably the character of rough ^\one.

3i6 The Graphic Arts.

It is very remarkable that of all modem painters ConstaUe
has had quite incomparably the widest technical influence. The
modem school of landscape-painting in France was founded by
the influence of his pictures, because Frenchmen who loved
nature saw in them means of interpreting natural appearances,
in the kind of scenery they knew best, which surpassed the art
of the old masters. The French landscape-painters influenced
a whole school of mstic artists, including several very well-known
painters of* animals, and from France this rastic style passed
into Belgium, Holland, and Germany. The next extension of
its influence was an invasion of figure-painting, a great deal
of which began to be executed on the principles of landscape,
and modem Continental art of this class has had, in its turn, a
considerable influence in England. The characteristics of this
style are strong impasto, a taste for vigorous oppositions in light
and shade, a love of rough textures, of decided characteristic
touches, and of variety in colour, even in spots. I can make
this clearer by an anecdote. Being out at work from nature
with an eminent French landscape-painter, I noticed that a
farmer had been lopping some branches off the alders, and that
my friend did not fail to paint the little ovals of reddish wood
laid bare by the farmer's axe. I made a remark about them,
and he said, ' Don't you see what a relief they are to my pic-
ture ; how much livelier it looks with them than without them ?
There is the advantage of painting from nature, I should not
have thought about them in the house.' Now, his liking for
these spots of accidental fresh colour was absolutely a modem
taste. An old master would have avoided them, he would have
painted the stems all brown.

Thanks to Mr. Armitage, I am able to give the palette used
by Paul Delaroche : —

White — Naples Yellow — Yellow Ochre — Vermilion — Lake
— Light Red — Burnt Sienna — French Ultramarine — Raw
Sienna — Bitumen — Blue Black.

Mr. Armitage says that Horace Vemct used exactly the same

Painting in Oil. 317

palette. We have already seen the effects of bitumen in his
pictures. Delaroche would sometimes substitute Ivory for Blue
Black, and when painting the ' Hemicycle * he added the mad-
der colours to his palette. His method of working was very
simple. He would begin by making a very careful drawing in
pencil on the charcoal sketch, correcting and purifying his out-
lines. The next thing he did was to take some warm, trans-
parent colour, such as Burnt Sienna, and indicate with it the
shadows of the flesh. He avoided bitumen for this, on account
of the danger of painting over it afterwards. When this first
transparent shading in monochrome was dry Delaroche painted
over it in solid colour, doing his best to reach the intended
colouring at once, or get as near it as he could. The first
transparent shading was, therefore, in his practice, intended
simply as a guide for himself in a subsequent stage of the work,
and as a means of sustaining the colouring of his shadows. It
had nothing final in its character, like the transparent shadows
of some Flemish and English work, which were intended to be
left in opposition to opaque lights. Both Vemet and Delaroche
had a great contempt for the varnish jellies, and considered that
nothing was requisite except a very little linseed oil and a little
turpentine.

The following is the palette used by Eugene Delacroix when
he left Gu^rin's studio : —

White — Naples Yellow — Yellow Ochre — Mars Yellow —
Ochre de Ru — Yellow Lake — Venetian Red — Light Red —
Burnt Sienna — Cassel Earth — Prussian Blue — Peach-stone
Black — Raw Sienna — Raw Umber — Vandyke Brown — In-
dian Yellow — Ultramarine — Mars Brown — Crimson Lake.

This palette, though it contains no less than nineteen pig-
ments, is much less complete chromatically than the palette of
nine given early in the second section of this chapter, and it af-
fords interesting evidence of the great truth that unless an artist
has thoroughly mastered the relations between pigments and
colour he may encumber his palette without having a complete

3i8 The Graphic Arts.

instrament. I do not find here any prismatic yellow, unless you
choose to call such the feeble and fugitive mixture of Yellow
Lake with White Lead ; and I seek in vain for anything equiva-
lent to Vermilion, which, as I have said elsewhere, is a pigment
absolutely indispensable to chromatic completeness. Again, al-
though this palette is deficient in elements of such importance,
it includes three pigments known to be fiigitive, the lakes and
Indian Yellow, and the untrustworthy Prussian Blue. In 1824,
when Delacroix painted his famous * Massacre at Chio,* he kept
the above palette just as it was, but added to it Cobalt, Emerald
Oxide, Madder, and Purple Lake, the three first most valuable
additions, the third more questionable. In the third and last
palette of Delacroix whereof we have record, that which he used
in 1854, when painting the ScUon de la Paix at the Hotel de
Ville, there are changes of importance. He had now rejected
the following five pigments. Mars Yellow, light Red, Crimson
Lake, Mars Brown, and Ultramarine, and he had made the fol-
lowing additions, restoring the same number of twenty-one, —
Zinc Yellow, Laque Jaune de Gaude, Vermilion, Laque Rouge
de Rome, Brun de Florence, Mummy Brown.

Some of these additions are most interesting. In the palette
of 1824 we have a fine blue, a good permanent green, and a
valuable glazing red, in that of 1854 we have something like
a substantial and permanent prismatic yellow (the Chromate of
Zinc) , and the precious Vermilion at last. This palette is chro-
matically complete. As for the Laque de Gaude, I only wish it
could be relied upon, but fear that it cannot. It is a delightful
transparent greenish yellow, admirably adapted for glazing trees
and grass, and itself made fi*om a plant, the dyers' mignonette,
Reseda luteola, M6rim6e says that it is one of the most lasting
of the yellow lakes, but this is not saying very much ; and, al-
though it was used by Corot as well as Delacroix, I fear it must
be classed amongst those lovely temptations which try the virtue
"^ artists.

' have not space to say much about Ingres^ but the next time

Painting in Oil. 319

the reader goes to the Louvre he would do well to observe the
great technical difference between tbe ' CEdipus ' with the Sphinx
and the 'Source.' The first picture is in the early manner of
the painter when he was under the influence of David, and
painted conscientiously according to the ideas of the time, put-
ting the best drawing and modelling that he could into his work,
but without the leaat idea of communicating any charm by the
management of paint. The handling in the ' CEdipus ' is as
dull and uniform as can, be ; there is no attempt at accent any-
where, and the artist has held straight through the even tenour
of his way. Nothing could be more un picturesque in the mod-
em sense of the word, and though there are many fine quali-
ties in the performance they belong rather to sculpture tJian to
painting, for it could be translated, with littie loss, into a bas-
relief, When you turn to the ' Source,' what a difference ! An
old man's work (if we had not known we should never have
guessed it), but really painted with complete technical knowl-
edge, though still quite sober and free from modem glitter. A
coarse canvas was selected, and in all the prominent parts of
the naked figure, those which catch the light, it is so covered as
nearly to hide the grain, but as in shade it is covered less there
it shows in strong threads. At a distance of a few yards the
coarseness does not offend, but becomes invaluable for its effect
in softening surfaces and outlines. It would be hard to men-
tion a work in which thick and thin pigments are employed
with more perfect judgment.

Of all modem painters Landseer was the most thoroughly
popular, and his fiopularity was not due to his subjects only,
but in a great measure to his technical qualities as well. He
was a slight but very brilliant painter, who had gained absolute
mastery over his own particular kind of art. With Titian he
had nothing to do, but you may trace his descent from Rubens.
His especial power was to suggest with slight work the efTect
which another would have expressed with tenfold labour, so it
was a matter of course that he should adopt transparent be^jo.-

320 The Graphic Arts.

nings, with dexterous, thin, semi-opaque colourings for the second
stage, and very decided expressive touches in opaque colour for
the finish. Of all methods this is the most rapid^ You see it
to perfection in such a work as the * Young Roebuck and Rough
Hounds,* at South Kensington, where the roebuck is simply
rubbed in with semi-transparent colour, afterwards disturbed with
the brush to get texture, and lightiy scumbled with cooler tints
here and there, and touched with dark markings. There is
marvellous skill in the touchings on the dogs. Besides these
dexterities Landseer was very clever in preparing his transparent
ground colour so that its uneven surface would afterwards catch
thick opaque colour dragged over it, just in the way he wanted ;
he did this a great deal for his rocks, and he had a way of
rough-casting certain textures, particularly wool, in a way that
turned out to be strikingly successful when the picture was fin-
ished. Never was human being so clever as Landseer in the
art of making a picture look brilliant by dots and sparkles of
high light, set with the utmost skill (as I have said elsewhere)
just in their proper places. On the whole, the painting of Land-
seer, considered technically, was cleverness itself, but it is ipt
the finest kind of painting, being superficial in comparison with
the most thoughtful work, and speedily exhausted. Many of
his pictures seem likely to be durable, but some are injured by
cracks. * The Drover's Departure ' is a sad instance of this, as
there are fissures in it measuring a quarter of an inch across.

The latest style of Mulready is interesting as a return to an
early principle of art. The colours used are not exactly trans-
parent, except in parts, but though opaque in themselves they
are used so thinly that they become semi-transparent by mere
tenuity, and so the white ground of the panel or canvas shows
through them, and the lines of the drawing may be easily fol-
lowed. This is painted drawing, almost on the Van Eyck
principle, the diiference being that Van Eyck's work was more
substantial in the shadows, where it was more sustained by a
strong transparent first painting. There is hardly any pigment

Painting in Oil.

321

on the latest works of Mulready, but they may last a long time
if the colours used are not fugitive. I know, on the evidence
of Samuel Palmer, that Mulready employed a green on the
landscape in one picture which was com[ioscd of chrome yellow
and asphaltum, but I hope it was not his custom ; and he used
iodine scarlet on the child's top in his picture of 'The Widow,'
but it was probably pure and locked up in varnish.* A good
example of Muhready's later style is the ' Sonnet ' in the Sheep-
shanks Collection, where the boles of beech and the rocky fore-
ground, with green and reddish vegetation, are all very thinly
painted and very luminous by the effect of the light in the
ground. There is hardly any paint whatever on the shaded
sides of the trees.

Was this manner of paindng the maturity of art or its decline ?
Il was simply the return to a primitive principle, as when some
modem Christians, weary of elaborate rituals^ try in their own
way to get back to the simplicity of the Aposties. There have
been many returns of this kind in the fine arts, and they are
perfecdy blameless ; still, it would be a great mistake to adopt
Mulready's later style as if it were a development when in reality
it was a reaction. Modem painting is far more variously power-
ful than it could be with such hmited means. Simply to be
well drawn and luminous is not enough. Muheady's later work
is without substance, and though the colouring is bright it is
crude, and more like porcelain-panting than nature.

Linneli's method of painting is a modem development of that
of Rubens, The ' Landscape, Driving Cattle,' at South Ken-

• Iodine scarlet, the most brilliant of all known pigments, is unfortu-
nately nol durable even in water-colour. I painted a number of coats-o(.
arms about thirty years ago, in which I employed iodine scarlet for gules,
and now it has simply vanished, leaving the white parchment in ita place.
The decom position began by a metallic efflorescence, then the pigment
became thinner and thinner, as if it had been washed with water. Finally
it disappeared, leaving only some faint traces of its presence here and
there. In oil it vanishes if used thinly. It may be preserved for some
time in water-colour under a glaze of gamboge.

J

322 The Graphic Arts.

sington, is begun in rich transparent brown, and it seems likely
that the browns of the earth were painted into whilst wet with
greens and other colours. 'Die sky is painted with a full brush
in opaque pigments undisturbed after application, so that they
retain the expressional power of the brush which Rubens so
greatly valued. Very probably Linnell may have varied his
methods in other works ; no doubt in many of them the brown
foundation would be less important, it might even be absent,
but in all the linnells I have ever seen two or three important
principles are observed : — i. There is a play of transparent
and opaque colour with about equal appreciation of the services
each can render. 2. Rich touches of opaque pigment are left
undisturbed so as to get full executive expression. 3. Some
kind of varnish medium has been employed to make trans-
parent colours stand thickly in places where required.* Though
founded on Rubens, this manner of painting is fuller and better
developed than his, and a more suitable expression for our
greater modern knowledge of landscape.

The famous Hungarian painter, Michael Munkacsy, has been
good enough to explain to me, in his own studio, all the ele-
ments of his method. He begins by a rich brown monochrome,
with plenty of varnish, on the drawing. This monochrome is
in itself a fine, well-noujrished, picturesque sketch, and before it
is dry he works into it a second sketch in colour, not at all in
what we call dead colour such as Titian used, that is, with little
chromatic intensity, but a play of the most various and brilliant
colour, from a palette chromatically complete, such as a col-
ourist would do for himself before nature if he had not time to
finish. One of Munkacsy's pictures at this early stage is a fin6
medley of hues through which you may trace the intentions of
the artist. In subsequent paintings he developes form through
this and brings the colour better together by uniting it He

* The reader will see towards the close of this chapter that Linnell
and some of his friends made a varnish for themselves long ago to be
ffore of the purity of the ingredients, and kept it in stock.

Painting in Oil. 323

never dings to lines, but considers nature as a quantity of
patches of light and dark, and of different hues. This is quite
essentially a painter's conception. The striking effect of Mun-
kacsy's pictures is due in a great measure to their powerful
oppositions of light and dark, which are planned from the first
in the monochrome. His process of finishing does not make
the painting look harder, sharper, or more minute, but brings
out and harmonises the masses. Though his work is kept
intentionally sketchy to the last, it is by no means careless.
There are passages in the ' Jdilton and his Daughters ' which
look simple, but were painted many times over to get a low-
toned harmony ; and the large picture of ' Christ before Pilate,"
which has the appearance of the utmost facihty, occupied two
whole years.

There is a glorious sketch of a torrent by Miiller in the
National Gallery which is very nearly in Munkacsy's manner.
The first bold sketch was in brown, and on that various greys
and browns were lightly painted, the work being finished with
massive thick loadings and draggings wherever wanted in the
strong touches for the lights. Even the dark grey blue gloom
of the far-away hill has probably brown under it, whilst it is
evidently the foundaiion of the rich dark brown land in the
middle distance. The brown local colour of the Highland
torrent is simply the ground colour left apparent with its inten-
tional inequalities. One bit of technical skill is especially de-
lightful, I mean the wondrous management of that gleam of
loaded sky above the mountain. The broken nature of the
loaded colour gives in itself the sense of broken sky. It always
seems to me that for a painter who has the courage to attack
British mountain scenery here is the technical method if he
could at all approach MtUler's power in using it. This is grand
painting, nobly adapted to fine effects and sudden mspu-ation.

Some eminent English painters have, Uke Munkacsy, frankly
explained to me their favourite ways of work. There is not
room in these pages for all the information so commnnicitad,
but 1 give what is of chief interest and Vuvpo^Vawte.

324 The Graphic Arts.

The reader is already aware that^ir John Gilbert is an earnest
advocate for the old Flemish system of a monochrome founda-
tion. He paints his monochrome transparently in Raw Umber
upon a white ground, and when it is dry he glazes it with Raw
Sienna. This gives a pleasant golden brown which can be
easily turned to many other tints by light semi-opaque paintings,
and which is very favourable to harmonious colouring. Sir John
carries the monochrome far into detail, even to the extent of
drawing a ring on a finger, and he believes that by this finish
of the Umber painting time is gained in^the end. ' The com-
fort is immense,* he says, *in getting in the picture complete
in composition and drawing — to the smallest detail — in the
Umber as I have described. You cannot well get out of har-
mony if the ground for the shadows is jealously guarded to the
last.'

After the glaze of Raw Sienna is dry, Sir John puts all his
higher lights in with pure white, to ensure their brilliance after-
wards. To understand how he colours his monochrome, the
best way will be to take a portion of a subject — say a piece of
drapery which is to be coloured red. When the white is dry
he passes thinly a wash of the intended colour over it with a
rich medium (such as Roberson's), and enriches the shades
with deep glazings of lake, dark lake, &c., also with a rich
medium. He may then increase the intensity of colour upon
the lights, and the same in the darks. When half dry he will
touch into lights and darks again, 'thrusting as it were, the
brush into the thick, clotty colour, dragging it in parts. This is
a process most difficult to describe in words, but it is the delight,
the glory of painting.*

Sir John uses two kinds of medium — a thin one, composed
of turpentine and linseed oil, the thick one of Roberson's
medium with the addition of a little copal varnish, or else he
makes a megilp by mixing mastic varnish and linseed oil in
equal proportions. He employs the thin medium in the begin-
ning of a work until the Umber and Sienna are done with, but

Painting in Oil. 325

the thick vehicle is used for striking on the lights in the mono-
chrome, and for all the subsequent work of colouring. He likes
a strong and rough canvas 'single-primed.' He has a strong
dislike to the habit of taking up colours with the brush as they
come out of the tube. ' I set my palette,' he says, ' in the old-
fashioned way, laying the colours in order, and mixing each to
the same degree of fluidity. I never squeeze the colour from
the tube, leaving it unmixed by the knife. I think the brush
should always be charged carefully, and the practice of driving
it into the stiff unmixed colour is bad, and quite prevents this,
for you hfi, if I may so express it, an undigested lump of pig-
ment on to the canvas, and have to do there what should have
been done on the palette. To lay the colours from the tube on
the palette, and then mix with the brush, is not at all a good
practice.' ■ Sir John Gilbert is careful to let the monochrome
tell in the shadows, clianging it to the required colour by
glazing.

The most important point in Sir Frederick Leighton's prac-
tice is his very sparing use of vehicle. He uses none whatever

* I havE no doubt that the old habit of setting a palette by mixing
tints with the palette-knife and arranging them in order Is a very good
and praiseworthy habit. Some careful Dutchmen carried It to a wonder-
ful degree of elaboration, 3d as to have the lints all ready, as a lady has
her different Berlin wools, or a worker in mosnic his lastrat. Neverthe-
less, the reader will soon see, from the practice of «ome modern artists,
that this mixing of tints with the palette-knife is not by any means es-
sentia: locareful work, and there arc two objections to it. The first is, thai
it is hardly ever possible to foresee exactly what tints will be requited, so
as to mil them quite accurately beforehand, and if they have to be modi-
fied the work is done twice over. The second objection is the time that
it takes to set a palette. To do il properly takes an hour, which an artist
may give before a long sitting, but if he happens to have only two hours
before him, he docs not like to spend one of them in mere preparation.
For amateurs this objection is most serious, as their sittings are generally
short and they want to set to wock at once. They should use few pig-
ments, and resign themselves to mixing with the brush except for large
4>aces, such as skies, when the palette-knife becomes a necessitf.

I

326 The Graphic Arts.

till near the end, except that he thins his pigments with turpen-
tine when a line or wash has to run freely, and he is particularly
careful to have fresh turpentine every day. He does not like
to have much oil ground up with the colours, but orders them
' ground stiff,' as the colourmen say. The grounds he uses are
unabsorbent In Sir Frederick's opinion, a picture ought always
to remain porous and dead in surface until the last moment
Just at the last he uses Roberson's medium. When living
abroad he employed the well-known siccatif de HarUmy but
abandoned it in England, because he thought it did not take
kindly to EngKsh pigments.

Mr. Armitage always paints on grounds which have been
primed with substantial stiff white lead, allowed to dry thor-
oughly, and then scraped. In other respects he has always fol-
lowed the method of Paul Delaroche, with a few modifications.
He does not use Bitmnen, and abstains from both of the Um-
bers. Cobalt blue he has almost discarded, except for sky and
landscape, but has a higher opinion of the French Cobalt green,
which he 'finds almost indispensable.' He has also added
Pinard's yellow to the Delaroche palette besides madder lake,
and the brown lake sold by Mr. Roberson called * deep yellow
madder.'. Mr. Armitage is not much more addicted to the use
of mediums than Paul Delaroche was ; still, there is a difference
in this respect, for whilst Delaroche discarded the varnish
mediums altogether, Mr. Armitage employs that made by Mr.
Roberson, though very sparingly, often abstaining from it until
the picture is nearly finished, and then rubbing a little over the
part which is to be painted upon next, and besides this he uses
Roberson's medium as a thin varnish for the whole work when
the picture is thoroughly dry, rubbing it in well with a stiff brush.
Like Sir Frederick Leighton, he objects to oily colours, and ex-
tracts superfluous oil by squeezing the pigment upon blotting-
paper. He never sets a palette in the old-fashioned way by
mixing tints. *

Mr. Calderon says that he never mixed a tint in his life,

he n

I men

Painting in Oil. 327

though he knows of some painters who mix light, half-tint, and
shadow, for each drapery or object with the most admirable
results.* His pilette contains fifteen well-known pigments,
which, with the exceptioQ of Antwerp blue, have often been
mentioned in this chapter. He likes single-primed canvases
with a texture sufficiently perceptible to catch the colour. He
uses mediums sparingly, but has employed at different times copal
varnish, the siccalifda Harlem, Roberson's medium, ajid a megilp
he makes himself by pouring equal quantities of mastic vamish
hnseed oil into a pot, when the two combine into a jelly.
Few artists have aimed at freshness of touch more con-
gigletitly than Mr. Calderon, First, he composes his picture
mentally, and when tlie composition is well fixed in his mind
he puts it on the canvas in colour, and without models, using
solid pigments until the picture looks very much as he intends
it to look ultimately, and all the figures play their parts to the
satisfaction of their inventor. At this stage, however, the pic-
ture Is not yet in full effect, nor so completely realised in detail,
as the author intends it to be. The colours having dried, Mr.
Calderon now for the first time has models, and avails himself
of them for reference as he paints the picture over again upon
the first painting, bit by bit, a face here, an arm there, and so
on. And now we come to the most essential principle of his
practice. Each part is painted solidly and at once. If the
artist is not pleased with it he removes it entirely and begins
again. A head may be painted twelve times, but the eleven
attempts before the final satisfactory one have been entirely
scraped out, and what the public sees is always one decided
piece of straightforward painting, t

■ It is beMer, if tinls are mixed beforehand, that they should be pre-
paicd for a special purpose in a particular part of the work, rather than
in a general way for anything or everything, as there is less waste of time
and colour. It is provolting lo have made seta of tints which turn out to
_ be o£ no use.

veil-known Royal Academician (not Mr. Calderon) totd nve.X.b.iX

328 The Graphic Arts,

Mr. Calderon uses double canvases, one over the other, for
security. Mr. Holman Hunt paints on canvas, but puts a
panel behind it for protection against accidental injuries, such
as a push from the comer of a picture-frame in the confusion
which precedes and follows exhibitions, a kind of injury which,
if not visible at the time, may show years afterwards in starred
cracks in the hard paint. He Hkes, when possible, to have the
painted side of the canvas defended from the influence of gas
vapours and town atmosphere by a glass, at least during the first
twenty years of its existence ; after which, if the glass is thought
objectionable, it may be replaced by a coat of varnish. He is
extremely careful about materials of all kinds, doing all in his
power to ensure their freedom from adulteration and their
durability.

Mr. Hunt's palette is never fully set at the same time, but
his box is chromatically complete, so that he has every possible
tint at his disposal when required. French Ultramarine he
avoids as much as possible, because in many samples with which
he has made experiments a white element has been thrown up
in after years, and become apparent on the surface. The colour
called Yellow Madder, Mr. Hunt does not believe to be a mad-
der, but, except in a tendency to become pale if used sparingly,
he sees no reason to distrust the pigment itself in the darker
varieties. The pale Yellow Madder is sometimes too alkaline in
nature, and the Carmine Yellow Madder is so much so that when
dry it will wash off with a sponge, or in a short time will crack
and fall off in small flakes. With regard, however, to the dark
variety which Mr. Hunt has used, he finds that it has remained
quite sound in pictures painted more than twenty years. He
has observed the same of Lemon Yellow, Orange Vermilion,

a head in his principal picture at the exhibition of 1881 had been painted
forty times. It looked delightfully fresh, and as if it had been done with
the utmost ease. An intimate acquaintance with the manner in which
artists actually do their work is a complete deliverance from the unprac-
tical doctrine that the fine arts will not bear alterations^

Painting in Oil, 329

Madder Carmine, the two oxides of Chromium, Cadmium,
Malachite Green, Chrome Green, and even Emerald Green,
when used alone or with Lemon. Yellow or Gamboge.* Emer-
ald Green, however, will not bear mixture with Cadmium, but
turns dark brown in conjunction with that colour. Mr. Hunt
is careful to avoid the lighter varieties of Cadmium altogether,
probably because they are so easily adulterated with chrome.
It is to be observed that the pictures in which the above-
mentioned colours were employed were done on a perfectly
white ground, and that the colours themselves were only applied
in a single painting, or coat, whilst at the same time the artist
used copal more freely when there was any reason to fear the
fugitiveness of the colour.

In addition to these colours, which being of modem intro-
duction have been mentioned separately, Mr. Hunt uses the
older pigments which follow: — Flake White — two Naples
Yellows — Yellow Ochre — Raw Sienna — Chinese Vermilion —
Venetian Red — Indian Red — Crimson Madder — Indian Lake
— Burnt Sienna — Raw Umber — Burnt Umber — Laque
Robert — Cologne Earth — very deep burnt Lake — genuine
Ultramarine — Antwerp Blue — Cobah Blue — Blue Black —
and Ivory Black. These, with the modern pigments aheady
mentioned, make a list of thirty, of which a few are in use at
once. Mr. Hunt rarely mixes tints with the palette- knife, unless
for objects in which he detects no particular subtlety of tones,
such as stone-work, or other things m which none but a super-
ficial plane can be imagined. In flesh he goes to the other
extreme, and often makes greys and undeclared tints by work-
ing positive hues of an opposite character one over and into
the other, whilst they are wet. About the years 1850 and 1854
Jie also worked in transparent, or semi-transparent, colours on

The reader may possibly be misled by French writers on colours
in they speak of Vtrl kmeraude. Thai is not what we call Emerald
is what we cail Emerald Oxide of Chromium. Our
Emerald Green is the Vert V^ronise of the French writers.

330 The Graphic Arts.

wet white, for effects of sunlight, but he never used briDiant
colours on dry white. His practice was to prepare those parts
which required great brilliance and softness together with a bed
of stiff white, mixed with a small proportion of copal, and this
he immediately proceeded to work upon with transparent or
semi-transparent colours until finished. Mr. Millais at the same
time produced great results by this process, and the present
condition of the work so executed proves the method to be
good for durability.

Mr. Hunt usually works now on a stone-coloured ground,
prepared either in oil or tempera : when on an oil ground he
begins with an outline in chalk, pencil, or ink, and upon this
he lays in thinly the light and shade of the whole composition
with white, grey, and brown tints, made limpid with turpentine
or benzine, to which a little copal is added in order that there
may be uniformity of elements with later paintings. When, on
the other hand, the picture is begun on a tempera ground, as
three of Mr. Hunt's later pictures have been, he begins with the
grey and brown tints ground in water, and effects the transition
from water to oil by thinly covering the whole canvas with a
certain copal and oil varnish diluted with turpentine. This
varnish is not to be had from the colourmen, but was made
about forty years ago under the personal superintendence of
Linnell, Mulready, Creswick, and Webster, who took the trouble
to compound it themselves, that they might be certain about the
integrity of the ingredients. It was given to Mr. Hunt in 1853.
Before that time he used the copal preparation by Roberson,
diluted with linseed oil by the aid of turpentine, the mixture'
being made each morning, so that by evaporation the medium
became richer for the last work of the day. Mr. Hunt's pur-
pose in using varnish is not to attain that very rapid drying
which Landseer valued for pictures painted quickly. On the
contrary, Mr. Hunt lessens the drpng quality of his copal
medium by gently simmering it with so much linseed oil that
a touch on the bare canvas remains wet two days or more. He

Painting in Oil, 331

is always anxious not to use too much of the medium, putting
the smallest possible quantity into the dipper, and avoiding a
general giaze at the beginning of a day's work until the last
painting, when it becomes necessary to bring out the tints to
their full value. In earlier years, Mr. Hunt 'always painted his
background first, but now he generally paints the whole of tlie
figures in with faint colour, and then paints the important parts
of the background before giving the final degree of colour and
modelling to the principal figures. In the intervals of his dif-
ferent stages he makes an important point of drying and baking
his picture well in the sun, according to the old Venetian
practice.

In the selection of the above examples, and of the old mas-
ters at the beginning of the chapter, I have been guided by a
desire to show the varieties of practice which are included under
the generic title of Oil-painting, and I think it will now be
evident that this art is not really one art, but several. I believe,
also, that any attempt to set up one of these arts as the only
right and orthodox manner of painting would be exactly tiie
same mistake as if we were to say that an oak was a right tree
and ash and elm wrong trees, that a horse was a right animal
and cows and sheep wrong animals, that EngUsh was a right
language and French and German were wrong languages. My
opinion is, that difference of species does not constitute either
merit or demerit ; but, notwithstanding this, I still think it is
evident that a real and firm distinction may be established be-
tween a primitive and a developed art. Amongst the varieties
of oil-painting, you may easily detect the unripe, the ripe, and
the over-ripe. I should say that the early Flemish painting
is sound but unripe ; that the painting even of Raphael and
Lionardo is unripe, though not their drawing ; that the painting
of Titian and Velasquez is ripe, and so in other kinds is that ol

332 The Graphic Arts.

Rubens and Watteau ; that amongst modems the work of Land-
seer is quite ripe in its own kind, though it is not a rich fruit ;
that Linnell's is ripe and rich at the same time ; that Turner's
was ripe but not sound. And now I want to say a few words
about over-ripeness' in painting.

It is quite evident that a good deal of recent work, especially
in foreign schools, is past that stage in which art is at its per-
fection. There are three stages in the technical history of
painting. In the first, the painter draws firm and delicate lines
and clings to them tenaciously to the last ; he is also most care-
ful to preserve the luminous quality of his ground, his only trust
is in preservation, he has no faith in any power of recovery, he
is timid, careful, conservative. In the. second stage he has got
beyond anxiety about his line, he takes and leaves it with great
freedom, just as the eye loses and finds it again in nature, but
he is careftil about modelling, and will not represent such a
thing as a face or an arm without showing you plainly the round-
ing of its forms. He is absolutely indifferent to the preservation
of his ground, or of anything else, having perfect confidence in
his own power of recovery ; he is fond of executive expression,
he likes to leave his sign-manual by showing his workmanship,
which the early workman concealed; he neglects nothing in
colour, effect, or texture, which may add to the interest, without
injuring the unity, of his performance. He takes advantage
of everything in the materials which can make you feel either
the strength or the delicacy of his genius ; he expresses all the
visible qualities of natural things, the roughness and hard sub-
stance of granite, the friability of sandstone, the transparence
of water or its depth, the aerial lightness of a cloud, the shadowy
lustre of hair, the warm softness of the living human body.
And beyond all this, including and affecting every quality and
every detail, he observes and obeys the strange and wonderful
laws of vision by which matter is transformed for us into a half-
dream, by which we see things, not as they are in themselves,
but as they are when confused in the radiance, or veiled in the

I aari

I the

k:

I Fin,

^oom of the universe ■— this universe where nothing is ever seen
as it is, but only by gleams and glimpses, where a planet seems
greater than Aldebaran, and a shimmer of moonlight on a mill-
pond is of more apparent consequence than either.

The over-ripeness of art is indicated by the excessive pre-
dominance of fragmentary appearances in the mind of the artist,
when a glance of light upon a leaf or a twig and a bit of broken
dark shadow seem to him more important than the growth of
when the sparlde of a jewel attracts his attention more
ttfln the shape of the arm that wears it, when the texture of a
ams and that of the hair between them is the subject of
pains-taking than the arrangement of a group of cattle.
Finally, this over-ripeness leads to a kind of dexterous sketch-
ing, generally done with the palette-knife, which jumps from
sparkle to sparkle, from spot to spot of shadow, like a wren in a
hedge, without caring in the least about modelling a form, or
about painting anything steadily and seriously with the brush.
The French Salon of 1881 abounded in work of this dickering
Itind, and it appears to be the final development of French
■painting. There are still, of course, many exceptions ; men
like Landelle and Bouguereau, who do not allow themselves to
be disturbed by the prevailing fashion, but Landelle is con-
sidered out of date by the new school, and Bouguereau a.
Philistine who paints for groceTs. They are both a little prim-
itive in paying more attention to line and less to texture than
the best men of the present, but then they really do draw and
paint, they use the brush, and can follow a line or model a limb,
which, if the present tendency works to its ultimate results,
nobody will be able to do in the next generation. In landscape
this tendency may be less offensive, but even here it is un-
pleasant to see that plastering with the palette-knife has replaced
fair painting with the brush. When the brush is not abandoned
we may admit a system of dabs if they unite together at the
right distance to produce the intended effect. Gustave Den-
duyts has adopted a manner, as in his picture of the 'Thiw,'

I

334 '^f^ Graphic Arts*

in the Salon of iSSi, which is entirely dependent on dabs of
grey, brown, red, &c., each left in its place without retouch, or
change, or even a glaze, transparent and opaque colours being
used indiscriminately side by side. The result is good, owing
to the artist's great knowledge of effect, but though the picture
has in a remarkable degree the valuable quality of freshness it
looks only like a magnified sketch, a hasty souvenir of a sloppy
road near a village. Appian*s present system is more objec-
tionable. It resembles nothing so much as the lumps of opaque
colour on an overcharged palette. The loading is enormous
and not of pleasant quality, especially the smearing of thick
paint on skies. There is hardly any form, and to replace it we
have many gleams and spots of intense and very various colour.
Modelling and the manual expression of the brush are both
conspicuous by their absence. Karl Daubigny has arrived at a
system of smearing in wet paint and leaving the smear. When
this is done with judgment it tells effectively enough at a dis-
tance, but it is not pleasant execution. These men are far from
being ignorant; they are experienced artists who know the
qualities of painting, in all probability, quite as well as the writer
who is now criticising them, but they belong to a school in
which the art is over-ripe, like a fruit that has been left too
long upon the tree, and to a time when the restless search for
novelty and force of style has driven artists to abandon all
sober and delicately observant work for a system of splash and
sparkle.

The reader may remember these principles the more easily
if they are stated in a brief resume. It is possible to do this
in a very few words. In primitive or unripe art the line pre-
dominates and is made more visible than in nature, in per-
fect or ripe art the line is subordinate and substance predomi-
nates, in art that is more than ripe substance is replaced by
glitter.

I must not conclude this chapter without a brief description
of oil-painting as it is best applied to mural decoration. Many

Painting in Oil. 335

'Of my readers may have seen the large oil-paintings of M. Puvis
de Chavannes which have been exliibited at different times in
the Salon. They are quite out of place in an exhibition of
pictures, and the first feeling they excite is ridicule, but when
we know them better, and have seen tbem in the places for
which they were intended, and have entered into the ideas of
■the artist, a man of culture who has devoted his whole life to
the special work of mural painting in oil, we begin to be ashamed
of our shallow judgment The fine new Museum at Amiens is
the best place to see them, especially in the staircase, and there
is a curious fact about that staircase which is worth telling.
The ceiling of it was brilliantly painted by a clever artist who
had the usual French palatial style at his fingers' ends, and
could put majestic groups into gorgeous costumes fit for a royal
dwelling, Puvis de Chavannes had the great wall-spaces, and
he filled them with serious groups of primaeval men and women
toiling or resting in vague vast landscapes all in dead colour,
with a border round each composition of fruits, leaves, and
flowers, on a blue ground painted in the same dead manner.
Did the ceiling kill the wall-paintings ? No ; what happened
was precisely the reverse. The wall-paintings, dull as they had
looked in the Salon, turned out to be exactly what was wanted
to harmonise with the dignity of architecture, and they belonged
so perfecdy to the building that they made the ceiling look
utterly superfluous and out of place, so it is to be done away
with, and the light, instead of coming in by side windows, is to
come from the roof. The wall-space so gained is to be filled
with another great dead-coloured composition by Puvis de
Chavannes. ^|

The rules that he observes are simply these : — i. To keep ^|
^^ the smface quite dead, which may be done with spike oil ^H
^^^L .or turpentine.* 2. To paint in a light key, as if in fresco, ^H

^^^P * The canvas osetl Is strong and coarse, and the threads are not much ^H

^^^* hidden by the pigments, which are not loaded. It is not stretched on ^H
F frames but maroujii, which means that it is pasted to the wall wil.li ai ^^k

336 Tlu Graphic Arts.

renouncing all the effects of depth bebnging properly to oil.
3. To keep the work as simple as possible throughout, avoiding
smaU details and pretty colours and everything resembling tricks
of effect. The figures are more heavy than graceful, and they
are broadly defined — the landscape is a world made on purpose
for such figures. These conceptions are remote enough from
nature ; they are dreams of a primaeval state in the dim past,
and just for this reason they are more easily adapted to the
artificial character of architecture, with which pure nature can
never be happily associated.

Comparison of Oil-Painting with Nature. — The different
kinds of painting in oil and varnish which are included under
the term 'oil-painting,' comprehend the most effectual of all
known means for the interpretation of natural appearances, both
as to the qualities of different substances and the effects under
which we see them. The oil-painter can either work from dark
to light, from light to dark, or from a middle tint lying exactly
between them to both of the two extremities. In this respect
he differs widely from most draughtsmen, and fh>m all engravers
whatever, for there is no species of engraving which allows the
artist to go in the light or the dark direction with equal facility.
Besides this advantage, which is of immense importance always,
but especially when the artist has to deal with light or dark de-
tails to be painted upon work already done, an oil-painter can
model more deliberately, and therefore more thoroughly, than a
painter in any other medium, and the resources of his art in the
way of texture make it unrivalled in the representation of natural
surfaces. It may, at first sight, appear rather beyond the pres-
ent comparison to say anything of the great expressional power
of oil, when the brush leaves the impress of a master's energy in

strongly adhesive substance. This protects the back of the canvas from
damp, whilst the canvas itself keeps the plaster well together. It is
hoped that this kind of mural painting may last as long as any other at
present known to u^.

L

Pahiting in Oil. 337

thick or thin pigments, but in reality even this, which seems a
purely mental, a purely human expression, is also an interpreta-
tion of nature, for a cahn execution is in harmony with Nature's
calm, and so conveys the feeling of it to our minds, whilst a
forcible and even violent execution may often powerfully help
the impression of natural energy. No one with a sense of what
is suitable would paint a boating party on Virginia Water with
the vigour of handUng which would be appropriate for a naval
engagement.

The fine arts always range between at least two opposites.
Engraving ranges between white and black, and also between
thin lines and thick ones. Charcoal drawing ranges between
white and bhck, with intermediate gradations of shade. (
painting has many such oppositions at its command with a
gamut of degrees between them. The reader will easily dis-
cover most of these for himself; but there is one of which less
account is usually taken than, in my opinion, it deserves, and
that is, the opposition between coarseness and delicacy, of which
the two extremes are always at the command of an oil-painter.
I need not say that I use the word ' coarseness ' quite without
any intention of blame. It is only a material coarseness that I
mean, which is not only quite compatible with intellectual re-
finement, but is often one of its expressions. What I mean is
more particularly this, that whikt he is at work any skilfiil painter
in oil can always, at will, make any part of his picture either
delicate or coarse, according to the nature of the thing to 1
represented, and that quite independently of the substance c
which he is painting, be it smooth panel or rough canvas. H
can, himself, make all sorts of surfaces when he pleases, and he
can paint upon them either rudely or with refinement. It is
this which gives to oil-painting its unequalled force of represen-
tation. It has also degrees of transparence and opacity at
command which cannot be approached in any art except that
modem form of water-color which is an imitation, an echo, of
itself. Lastly, the power of unlimited correction is most CivtiNis.-

33? The Graphic Arts.

able to the representation of nature, for it seldom happens that
even an accomplished artist can get exactly what he wants at
the first attempt The facility with which changes of intention
can be carried out makes oil-painting the best colour art for stu-
dentSy as charcoal is the best in black and white.

Painting in Water-Colours. 339

CHAPTER XXII.

PAINTING IN WATER-COLOURS.

IN turning over the pages of this volume and in glancing,
however carelessly, at the headings on the right hand, the
reader can hardly fail to have been struck by the great variety
of methods and of substances employed by mankind in the
graphic interpretation of nature. The wonder seems to be,
especially if we regard the fine arts as simply imitative, that
one or two, or at the most, let us say, three or four, different
kinds of drawing have not been preferred, after conclusive
experiments, to all others, and that the rest have not become
simply obsolete, like superseded doctrines in physical science
or tentative inventions in the mechanic arts. There is oil-
painting, for example — certainly the dominant kind of paint-
ing in the modern world — an art of splendid power and
wonderful versatility, and it may seem surprising that water-
colour should be able to maintain even a mere existence in
the presence of such a rival; yet not only has water-colour
co-existed with oil, it has flourished vigorously in England
and had a considerable share in the general modern pros-
perity of the fine arts. On the Continent it has been less
appreciated, but although undervalued and misunderstood for
generations it is not permanently kept down by the superior
strength of oil, but is gradually gaining in importance as its
qualities are better known. It has been employed by painters
of great eminence in various countries, especially since 1870,
and at the present time (188 1) its future prospects are
brighter than they have ever been before.

340 The Graphic Arts.

We are often very effectually helped to a right understand-
ing of things by considering the foolish prejudices they have
encountered. The Continental prejudice against water-col-
our is giving way, but I am old enough to remember it in all
its force. I remember the time when water-colour was not
considered a serious art in Paris, the time when a painter
famous for his work in oil might play with water-colour as a
relaxation, but when no artist, however great his knowledge
and his natural artistic talents, could hope to get them recog-
nised by working in what was then considered a slight and
frivolous medium. Water-colour was practised by girls at
school, and through one of those illogical associations of
ideas by which mankind is governed, and nowhere more
absolutely than in France, it was inferred that artists who
confined themselves to water-colour had little more thai the
artistic capacity of school-girls. It is useless to meet a preju-
dice of this kind by reasoning, for reasoning will never dis-
entangle two ideas which have once become firmly fastened
together in the popular mind. It was settled that water-
colour was frivolous, just as our own classical scholars had
decided that modern languages were frivolous, and you could
no more get a Frenchman to learn water-colour properly than
you could make a proud Englishman condescend to observe
the inflexions of French verbs.

Meanwhile (so mighty is the power of a word) all French-
men who prided themselves in having correct views about
the fine arts professed unbounded reverence for water-colour
under another name. They despised it when it was called
aquarelle^ they bowed down to it when it was called /««/«/r^ h
lafresque.

Fresco is water-colour on fresh plaster. The modem
water-glass process is water-colour on dry plaster. What we
call 'water-colour' is generally done on paper, and it is as
nearly as possible the same art as the two others, the main
difference being that the water medium is enriched a little by

Painting in Water-Colours. 341

the gum that holds the powder together in cakes or tubes,
and also by honey when slow-drying waler-colours are em-
ployed. There is another difference in the substance on
which the colours are laid. Fresco is done on a mixture
of lime and sand, water-colour is done on paper, the advan-
tage here being entirely on the side of water-colour, not only
for the convenience of the artist in working, but also because
paper is really a better substance for water-painting than
intonaeo ever can be. Paper is tolerant of many pigments,
inionaco destroys all but a few ; colours laid on paper un-
dergo but little change, on intonaeo they alter greatly. Paper
has a richer and better texture than any mixture of lime and
sand, and the textures of paper admit of such boundless
variety that they may be made to the taste of every artist
who uses them. Water-colour on fresh plaster (which we call
fresco) does not permit alteration, water-colour on paper stands
half-way between fresco and oil in this respect, permitting
much, but not infinite, alteration.

As to seriousness and frivolity, there is not the faintest
shadow of a reason, in the nature of things, why a water-
colour on paper should not he just as serious a performance
as one on either fresh or dry piaster. People despise paper
because it is cheap, and they think it is a frivolous kind of
substance because it can be torn easily ; but why associate it
with intellectual frivolity when al! the most serious modem
books have been not only written upon it but printed upon it
also .' It is one of the most beautiful and perfect substances
ever made by the ingenuity of man. It is, at the same time,
one of the most various, one of the most adaptable. Parch-
ment is one thing simply, in greater or less perfection, but
paper is a thousand, and amongst the thousand an artist will
generally find, not roughly nor approximately, but precisely
what he wants,

s quite unnecessary to adduce evidence that paper is well
lapted for learned and serious drawing, since all the greatest

342 The Graphic Arts.

masters of design have used it habitually, whilst they rarely
employed parchment and vellum. The modem art of water-
colour painting is not the daughter of fresco, nor of painting
in tempera, nor even of oil-painting, but simply of drawing on
paper as practised by the old masters in line at first with a fiat
auxiliary wash. As the wash grew in importance it ceased to
be fiat and admitted modelling, the line was replaced by mark-
ings with the point of the brush, and the full water monochrome
was the result. But even before water monochromes were
fully disengaged from the auxiliary line they were sometimes
tinted, thereby suggesting colour and approaching it. Mod-
ern water-colour is the final development of the tinted mono-
chrome, which was done in bistre or Indian ink and washed
in tints far below the full chromatic strength and variety
of nature. Our water-colour might possibly have come from
mediaeval illumination, which was a kind of water-colour on
parchment in bright pigments, but that is not a true account
of its pedigree. It might have happened that mediaeval
illumination passed into English water-colour ^f the bright
pre-Raphaelite kind without any transition through mono-
chrome, but the truth appears to be that the true origin of
modern water-colour was in the use of a washed brown
shade on paper. Nevertheless, as will often happen in these
historical questions, we may be startled from time to time by
finding something in past art which seems to contradict our
theory by an anticipation of future developments. There is
a curious instance of this in a study of a stream by Rubens,*
a little stream such as would interest a modern English
landscape-painter. Rubens seems to have gone to it quite
in a modem temper, and to have made his study in body-
colour just as we ourselves might do on any summer's day.
He painted the alders with their reflection in the water, the
irises in green lights against dark, the sprays of foliage re-
lieved against brown darks, the reddish brown bank of the

♦ British Museum, i859-8-6-6a

Painting in Water-Co'httrs. 343

little stream, and the distant blue hill beyond. With such a
beginning as that there seems to be no reason in the world
why the art of water-colour land scape -pain ting as we know
it should not have been developed soon after the death of
Rubens ; but this was only one of those strange anticipations
by which men of genius sometimes project themselves, as
it were, a couple of centuries into the future.

The failure of illumination to lead the early artists in the
direction of true water-colour was due to its own principle,
and this principle deserves a parenthetic paragraph to itself.
Illumination is not founded upon drawing in any advanced
meaning of the word, it is not founded upon light and shade,
and even (what the reader may be less prepared to admit)
il is not founded upon colour. The true principle of illu-
mination is to gratify the taste for bright colours which be-
longs to children and to those ages of the human race that
are the childhood of humanity. The drawing in the best
mediaeval illuminations is no doubt quite skilful enough for
merely decorative purposes so long as organic form is ex-
cluded, but although the illuminators often displayed con-
siderable powers of observation, although they noticed a great
deal that interests and amuses us in action and expression,
it would be a misuse of language to say that they could draw
anything beyond simple and conventional form. However
complex their decorative work may seem, it is soon analysed
and easily copied, which can never be said of really accom-
plished drawing. The refinements of organic form, and the
mystery, the intricacy, the abundance of landscape, were all
alike hopelessly beyond the range of the illuminators. Any
good modern coin contains more drawing and modelling in
one profile than their most elaborate miniatures; any good
modern charcoal sketch contains more light and shade- With
regard to colour, which engrossed so much of their attention,
they hardly got beyond heraldry. They could place a few
bright and decided colours side by side, as our grandmothers

544 ^^ Graphic Arts.

used to do in their patchwork quilts, and they could commu-
nicate, to minds as simple as their own, their infantine delight
in vermilion and gold, in blue and emerald green, in purple
and orange, but they knew no more about colour (in the high
artistic meaning of the term) than if they had been so many
flower-loving butterflies or bees. It was natural, therefore,
that mediaeval illumination, after having developed its own
principle and reached its own perfection, should pass away
in a decadence of its own, without transforming itself into
something so different, so far superior intellectually, as the
modern art of water-colour. The influences of illumination
may be traced in early oil-painting, and they are perhaps
even more clearly visible in fresco, but they had died out
before the modern schools of water-colour arose. It is well
they did so, and if anything is to be regretted in the history
of the art at all, it is that the love of bright pigments for
themselves should have led some modern artists, who had
more enthusiasm than culture, to a system of mediaeval col-
ouring which encourages the belief that water-colour is inevi-
tably crude.

The water-colour process in use in the eighteenth century
was that of tinted monochrome. This was quite in accord-
ance with the practice of many distinguished painters in oil
who worked upon monochrome most successfully, as we have
seen in the last chapter, but the two arts are pursued under
technical conditions so widely different that what is good in
one may be very much less advantageous in the other. The
constitution of an oil-picture is naturally robust. It is painted
upon canvas or panel, and the colours become so firm in
drying that a second application of them, if unsuccessful, may
be removed at the end of a day's work without any serious
injury to the painting that lies beneath. Again, whilst you
are actually engaged in the work of painting, your brush does
not disturb the work done at a former sitting, you work upon
it easily, without mixing the two layers of colour. Water-

Painiing in Watcr-Colonrs. 345

colour, on the other hand, is naturally an art which has a
delicate material constitution, and there is a closer necessary
relation between the pigments and the substance which car-
ries them, and also between one layer of pigments and an-
other than that which subsists in oil. In true transparent
water-colour the paper is of far more consequence than the
canvas or the panel in oil, and the obscuring of the paper by
washes of brown or neutral tint before colouring is begun is
a far more serious matter than the darkening of a canvas with
Raw Sienna and varnish. It may therefore happen, and I
believe it really is the case, that while a monochrome foun-
dation is not objectionable in an oil-picture, it is likely to be
intrusive in water-colour. I believe that modern English
water-colour painters have acted wisely, in the interest of
bright light and pure colour, in rejecting the preliminary
neutral tint of their predecessors. If you paint, let us say in
Indian ink, the general relations of tone in your picture, and
then work upon that in transparent water-colour, the Indian
ink will show through all the tints you lay upon it and chill
them and change them. Many a tint which would be lovely
on pure white paper, or on paper of a creamy hue, would
look foul on ground of a cold grey. Whatever may be the
colour of the first chiaroscuro painting, it is plain that it
ought not to be too cold. Sepia or bistre, with a wash of
Raw Sienna, would be safer than Indian ink or the cold
' neutral tint,' but although such a preparation might be good
for some parts of the picture it would not be equally available
for all. It would spoil every tender blue, every cool, light,
and transparent green in sky or water, though it might well
sustain the stronger greens of the foreground and the russets
of autumnal foliage. There is, I believe, but one really safe
system in water-colour, and that is, to prepare the ground
colour of each pari of the picture with special and separate
reference to the work which is to be laid upon it afterwards.
According to this system the colours used in preparatory

346 The Graphic Arts.

work will vary in every picture and in every part of it If
the reader desires to know some plan which will involve less
care and thought at first, he has the resource of employing
some very simple palette, such as that mentioned in the
chapter on Oil-painting, for a dead-colour — Cobalt, Yellow
Ochre, and Light Red. White and black were added to
these for oil, but in water-colour the paper supplies the white,
and if black is used at all it should be with the utmost sobri-
ety, because it cannot be so easily overcome by lighter sub-
sequent colourings. It would be difficult to mention three
pigments more generally useful in water-colour than the triad
given above. David Cox used to say, * Play with Cobalt and
Light Red.' Wyld attaches so much importance to Cobalt
and Yellow Ochre that he keeps these pigments, and these
alone, always in a state of purity on his palette. He calls
them ' two contending principles, and modifications of red and
green which the slightest addition will change them to.' This
is the reason why our triad is so available as a beginning
of colouring in the most various directions. It gives us all
the important oppositions in a state of initiation, and by
subsequent colouring with brighter, or deeper, or more in-
tense pigments, they may be carried out fully to their con-
sequences.

It has been observed already, with reference to oil-painting,
that there is a certain contrivance by which a work that is
not really in colour may be made to suggest colour, and even
to pass for it when the public is not severely critical. Great
numbers of paintings have been produced which are really
nothing but monochromes with touches of colour to make
people believe that tjiere is more than they really see. The
system is not quite strictly honourable in works that pretend to
be pictures, but it may often be of great practical use in mere
studies done for the artist's own collection of memoranda.
Drawings may be made in brown for a basis — in sepia or
bistre — and then touched upon freely with decided colours

Painting in IVater-Co lours.

347

in places as memoranda, to suggest to the mind the effect of
full colouring if it were carried out. There are instances
of this kind of work amongst the studies of the old masters.
There are drawings by Rembrandt in brown with bold de-
cided patches of red and yellow for parts of costume. In the
JJritish Museum* there is a man on horseback drawn in
brown with pen and wash, but his baldrick is yellow, and
there is red on his saddlecloth and his boot. A companion
drawing by the same master shows us a negro on horseback
with a kettle-drum, and the basis of the whole drawing is
brown line (probably with a reed-pen) and flat brown washes,
yet the dress, the drum-cloth, the parasol, and the bridle are
all red, ^nd the kilt is yellow. Now, these are not works in
colour, and ihey have not the slightest pretension to be any-
thing of the kind — they are really works in brown with indi-
cations of different colours done in this way for convenience.
It is plainly more convenient for a painter to lay a few patches
of colour in this way upon a brown drawing than to write the
names of the hues, because the result is more immediately
legible. If, however, any regard is paid to the appearance of
such sketches as works of art, care must be taken to employ
such colours only as will either harmonise with the brown
or else offer an agreeable contrast. It has
elsewhere that even in monochromes the la'
cotouring must be respected. We can nev
these laws under any circumstances — they a
in engraving, where the tint of the ink and that of the paper
mast be so related as to avoid off-ence.

There was a modification of the simple monochrome in the
water-colour of the eighteenth century which gave the oppo-
sition of coolness and warmth, and was used to convey the
ideas of distance and nearness. The early water-colourists
often used the greys of Indian ink or neutral tint in their
distances, and a brown in their foregrounds. The distances

' British Muaeum D. Rembrandt, [359-8-6-74.

i been observed
s of agreeable
r escape from
2 present even

348 The Graphic Arts.

might even be frankly blue, if the blue was kept pale, with-
out seeming to call for more colour elsewhere. The progress
from work of this class to real colour might be marked by
the gradual admission of hue amongst the brown, esp>ecially
of reddish or golden modifications of brown, and after that
a little green of an unobtrusive quality would carry the artist
to the verge of complete colouring. Whether this gradual
progress from monochrome to colour, first through grey and
brown, and afterwards by admitting blue into the one and
gold and green into the other, be or be not the best initiation
into water-colour painting, I do not presume to determine,
but I am quite certain that it is a good initiation, and we
know that Turner, as well as some other distinguish^ paint-
ers in water-colour, entered the paradise of colour after having
first passed through this apparently dull and sombre portal.
Some other painters of ability have not thought it necessary
to advance to colour through this preparatory discipline, but
it will always be found, I believe, that if this discipline has
not been followed exactly, the initiation which it affords has
been gained in some other way, perhaps through some dry
process, such as charcoal, for light and shade, and after that
by the study of quiet colour in another medium, such as oil
or varnish. The study of quiet colour is made inevitable for
all who pass through the discipline of figure-pain ring, since it
so happens, most fortunately for such students, that the hu-
man body can be painted without bright unmixed pigments,
and directs attention to the principles of quietly observant
colouring rather than to the puerile pleasures of illumination.
It is of little consequence by what technical means we learn
colour, provided only that our initiation teaches us to dis-
criminate between those unobtrusive tints which the uncul-
tivated eye fails to perceive. After this training, but not
before, the painter may deal safely with hues of greater
brilliance.

The danger of water-colour, in comparison with oil, is a

pointing in Water-Coloitrs.

349

crudity of colour which only the best masters avoid, and
even they themselves appear at times lo become insensible
to it, as if there were something in water-colour itself which
made the eye become gradually tolerant of a certain harsh-
ness and rawness. Perhaps the best safe-guard against this
might be the frequent practice of some other art, such as oil-
painting or pastel; but besides this It is necessary to remem-
ber when actually occupied in the practice of water-colour
that the fault of crudeness is natural to it, and is only to be
avoided with especial care. There are two classes of tints
especially which may become to the eyes what vinegar is to
the paiate, the raw greens and the raw purples, and, by that
law of nature which matces the sinner in one thing liable to
sin also in another, it seldom happens that the lover of greens
that set your teeth on edge has not at the same time a per-
verse passion for violets or purples of exactly the same qual-
ity. Unfortunately he can find in natural landscape and in
botany a great number of combinations which appear to au-
thorise his taste. It will be found generally that his greens
and purples are not exactly those which he quotes as author-
ities in nature, but he certainly comes much nearer to them
than the old masters with their inoffensive brown. For ex-
ample, your crude modern water- col ourist is on a Highland
moor with purple heather and patches of brilliantly green
grass, the colour of both intensified by recent rain. If he
paints it as it appears to him his work cannot have the slight-
eat resemblance to that of any old master, because the old
masters did not paint heather at all, and they did not recog-
nise the natural green of grass. He will not even get help
from Turner, for although Turner understood the sublimity
of the Highlands so far as broad effects of light and shade
are concerned he never once made anything like a thorough
study of the colouring of a Highland moor. In the absence,
then, of all authoritative human guidance, the modern water-
colourisl sits down to receive a lesson from Nature, and takes

350 The Graphic Arts.

it for granted, first, that her teaching must be sound and safe;
and, secondly, that it may be available for himself. He feels
and knows that his colour is nearer nature than conventional
brown could ever be, and if you tell him that it is crude he
feels it hard to be condemned for his honesty and his accu-
rate^ observation. Evidently there is a mistake somewhere j
either he is wrong or we are. The mistake is in supposing
that natural colour is always safe in art. It may strike us as
beautiful in the natural world and still be offensive in paint-
ing, because painting requires a moderation, a limitation, and
a balancing of quantities, of which nature appears to be al-
most entirely independent. But besides this, when you come
to look quite closely into the matter, you will jjerceive that
although your water-colourist (I mean your average English
water-colourist, not a great master of colour) is extremely
observant, and knows far more about heather and grass than
the old masters, his colour is not the true colour after all,
but is really a translation of it into something harsher, just
as when a lady has been speaking to that dreadful invention,
the phonograph, it will repeat the words she has uttered, but
in tones that are a torture to the ear. Is there any rule or
precaution by which a painter in water-colour may guard him-
self against so great and so prevalent an evil as this ? The
early masters of his art are without value as examples, be-
cause, instead of fairly meeting and conquering the difficulty,
they evaded it by shutting their eyes to natural colouring and
by translating it into more manageable hues. The only prac-
tical remedy appears to be to remember that water-colour is
essentially a very delicate art, the most delicate of all the
graphic arts, and that, like all exquisite modes of expression,
it is easily overstrained. When painters are crude and harsh
in water-colour they are driving their art too far. The only
safe rule is to keep well within the intensity of natural colour-
ing, to be satisfied with approximation, and always to study
delicacy rather than attempt to conquer by violence. Advice

Painting in Water-Colours. 351

of this Wnd may be distasteful to young artists, and they may
be ready to mention, in reply, many bold and vigorous works
quite comparable to the strength of oil, but I would ask them
to reserve their judgment till we come to tlie end of the
chapter. No doubt water-colour may be a strong man's art,
for a strong man will put his vigour into anything, but still
there are some modes of expression which are especially
favourable to delicacy, and these ought noi 10 be forced.

There are many minor varieties of this art, but two broad
divisions must be settled before we proceed farther. You
will find in the same exhibitions of the water-colour societies
two distinct kinds of work, one of them founded upon the
principle that the light is to come from the paper, the other
on the principle that it is to come from opaque white mixed
with the pigments. The first resembles the eariy varnish
painting of the Flemish school, the second is like the loaded
opaque oil-painting of the modern French. Now, between
these two kinds of painting there is nothing in common ex-
cept the name. The pigments in both may be diluted with
water, but the principles on which they are used are so dia-
metrically opposed that the arts are essentially not only dif-
ferent but really opposite arts. Some painters have blamed
opaque painting in water-colour as if it were an aberration, but
this appears to be only the common error of reprobating an
independent religion as if it were a schismatic form of our
own. Opaque water<olour has the same right of existence as
tempera, or oil painting, or that kind of fresco in which lime
is mixed with the pigments and loaded with the brash upon
the wall. Transparent water-colour has the same right of
existence as the early transparent varnish painting, and it
seems even to have proved a stronger claim by a longer sur-
vival, for whereas in oil the opaque system has superseded
the transparent, in waler-colour it is not so.

Between these two distinct arts of opaque and transparent
water-colour there lies a third, in which transparent, semi-

352 The Graphic Arts.

transparent, and opaque colours are used freely in combina-
tion. One painter, Mr. Wyld, tells me that of late years he
has mixed a little, but a very little, Chinese White with all his
tones in landscape, because he finds that even when its pres-
ence is unsuspected it adds sensibly to the efiEect of atmos-
phere.* Again, even when the main principle of a painter is
to make the light from the paper tell, he may yet have re-
course to white for small touches of light upon dark objects.
I propose to take these three kinds of water-colour sep-
arately, and to speak of the transparent first It is founded
upon the thin, old-fashioned, fiat, auidliary wash, and upon
the luminous effect of paper. The manual expression of it
depends upon the skill with which the artist manages the
liquid colour with his brush, so that it shall flow into the right
shapes, cover the proper spaces, and be just of the intended
hue when it is dry. The dexterity and knowledge required
for work of this kind are such that, instead of being an easy
art, as many people imagine, water-colour is really a very dif-
ficult one, for nobody can have the certainty of hand thac it
requires until he has practised it long and assiduously, with
a complete analytical knowledge of the natural forms and
effects to be interpreted. There may be some temerity in
deciding that one art is easier than another — I am sure that
the popular opinion is rash and wrong about the supposed
facility of water-colour, and I do not wish to fall into a similar
error about another art — but if both water-colour and oil-
painting are to be done well, I believe that oil is the easier of
the two. The difficulty of water-colour is greatly enhanced
by the different behaviour of pigments when used in washes.
Some of them deposit a sort of powder in the little hollows
of the paper, which produces a speckled appearance ; others
mix more completely with water, and do not make any deposit

♦ Harding used to do the same. He was very clever in using body
colour so as to produce a good atmospheric effect without attractii^ atten-
tion to itself as a pigment

Painting in Water-Colours. 353

of this kind. The difference in this respect between French
Ultramarine and Indian ink is immense. Again, there is a very
great difEerence in water-colour (it is not felt in oil) between
the difficulty of using a pigment in a pale, diluted condi-
tion, and that of using exactly the same pigment when it is
necessary to have it darker. A pale sky, for example, is
always easier to paint than a dark one, and much Jess labori-
ous. 'For dark skies,' a very accomplished painter in water-
colour wrote to me, 'I believe that nothing but often-repeated
washings and retouches will do the work well. The finest
storm skies I ever saw are Turner's — Stonehenge, the Mew
Stone, &c., and they are all stippled like miniatures. The
stippling, which is perhaps unavoidable for equalising tints,
becomes very precious 19 giving a twitter and vibration that
mere washing can never give. When I fairly wash a sky with
a large and very soft brush {a flat one is the best) I generally
take oif as much colour as will come away without absolutely
resorting to friction.' *

The deposit of particles in tbe little hollows of paper when
the pigment will not readily dissolve in water, and is not
divisible enough for mere suspension to produce the effect
of solution, is tolerated by many artists of mature skill with a
patience that sometimes surprises amateurs, but when work-
men have really mastered a craft, even the imperfections of
it are made subservient to their purposes ; and so it will be
found that the very speckling of the paper which we dislike
when it happens against our will, may be a happy accident
under certain circumstances, when it produces the effect of
stippling and makes a sky more penetrable and more pro-
found. This is so in Alfred Hunt's drawing of Dunstan-
borough, where the atoms of matter in the grey sky are left

" Repeited washes or spongings on grained paper take off much of
the surface colour, whilst they leave atoms of colour in the holiows, a.s
printers' ink \% left in a pUte when an etching is printed. The effect of
thia is often valuable in the interpretation of natural texture and o^-iKVi-^.

A

iU 7%^ GrapAic Arts.

bn purpbde, with excellent effect. If, however, the artist ob*
jects to it, he has two ways of fighting against it. A very
small proportion of Chinese White mixed with the other pig-
ments will go a great way to obviate it — the opaque white
thickens the water and seems to prevent the molecules of
colour powder from settling down together in the hollows.
If this is not used, the only practical remedy is to take out
the specks one by one very carefully with the point of a camel-
hair brush, and with this and other exercises of patience, a
skilful artist will sometimes sp>end a week over a single sky.

All kinds of devices have been resorted to by water-colour
painters to make washes appear even and delicate when the
brush-marks are not to be seen. In modern water-colour the
sponge and the rag are used nearly as much as the brush,
and when hard edges of colour are to be avoided, the artist
often dstmps or wets his paper and works upon it before it
has time to dry. The most convenient way of doing this is
to stretch the paper on a frame instead of stretching it on a
board, and damp it behind. Water is sometimes actually
poured on the surface of the drawing during its progress, for
the production of certain effects ; or it is applied in spray,
like a fixing solution on charcoal.*

It is found in practice that when an object occurs in the
middle of a broad space of delicately gradated colour, such
as a cloud in the sky, or a boat on a lake, it may be painted
boldly upon it when the coloured space is much lighter than
the object ; but when it is darker, either the space must be
coloured all round the object or else it must be first painted
as if the object did not exist, and then a small space of paper
must be cleared of colour so as to give the opportunity for a
fresh piece of painting in that place. If a few clouds are
scattered over the sky, like little islands with definite shapes,

* Blotting-paper is often used on large washes in a certain condition,
and sometimes a large surface is gently caressed with the badger-hair
nftener until it is dry.

Painting in Water-Colours. 355

the best way is to paint the sky first as if they did not exist,
and tlien wash the pajjer just where the clouds are to be, and
paint them on the washed places. When the forms are deli-
cate the best way is to draw them carefully on a separate
piece of paper and cut them out with a sharp pen-knife.
Then, by a process of stencilling, the sky is washed off in ihe
cut shapes — washed off, that is, more or less as the artist
may desire ; as when something of the sky colour is left it
may occasionally be an advantage." It is believed that a
more perfect harmony between sky and clouds may generally
be attained by this process than by leaving the paper for the
clouds at first, and paiuting round it ; but in rapid sketching
from nature stencilling is never resorted to. In sketching
there is no attempt to do things neatly — all the process is
left visible in the rough : skies are painted round clouds, as
water in a flood runs round an eminence and makes an island
of \t\ whilst the artist troubles himself as little about the
blotting and splashing of his blue as the fiood thinks about
its waves. Such defects as hard, dark edges to a blot of
colour, and great differences of intensity in the same blot,
are not objectionable in sketched work, provided only thai
a general balance of right colour is preserved. In Alfred
Hunt's drawing of ' Pangbourne-on-the-Thames,' the colour
on the darker portion of the sky, in the left^and corner, is
slopped on very unequally, and does not really represent the
perfection of the natural azure, yet the effect of it is right

• It is scartely necessary to menfion the well-kiiown fact, that if water
is a.ilowed to rest for a while on any portion of a drawing and then re-
moved with blottirE-paper in such a manner as not to spreaiiit beyond
the edge of the blot, the wetted colour can be fetched off easily with a
r^. In this way small forms may be drawn with a pen charged with
pure water, and the spaces cleared of colour so as to be wiiite and ready
for fresh painting. Grass, &c., so treated is not so sharp as when added
in l)ody-colour, but it harmonises better with the general appearance oE a
^- (ransparcnt drawing. The water fetches the colour og better if there is
illSttlegum in it.

3S6 The Graphic Arts.

synthetically in the work taken as a whole, because the rest
of the drawing is pritnesauHer also.

There are two broad divisions of transparent water-colour
— one in which all the manual processes are left visible, the
other in which they are concealed. All true sketches belong
to the first ; in them there ought to be no concealment what-
ever, the roughness which results in them from visible defects
due to rapidity of workmanship is not really a fault if only
the work be harmonious and expressive of knowledge and
power. When there is time to be very deliberate an artist
may, however, be right in desiring to get rid of this rough-
ness, .and approximate rather more nearly to that perfection
of nature in which it is never to be found. To mention a
special case, the blotting and splashing of uneven colour in
the azure of the sky. It is constantly tolerated in sketching,
but there is no such inequality in the sky above us. The
sky is not uniform, it is true, but it is gradated with the
most exquisite perfection, so that a rough water-colour sketch
is only a rude human interpretation of it A painter may
desire to imitate this perfection, and though he cannot really
attain anything equivalent to it, he still can convey to us with
wonderful success the idea, the impression, of a sky not made
with hands. But to convey this impression in its purity the
hand-work must be concealed ; as when it is desired to pro-
duce the effect of ideal music in an opera by Wagner the
musicians are hidden from the audience, who neither see the
ups and downs of the fiddlesticks, nor the puffed cheeks of
the trumpeters, nor the gaping mouths of the vocalists, but
can giv^ their attention to musky for itself and in itself.

Between these two principles of shown work and hidden
work the water-colour painter has to make his choice even
more decidedly than other artists, for there are few kinds of
art in which the manual labour is naturally so visible as in
his. Water-colour is naturally (I mean when cunning toil
is not employed to screen and conceal the true nature of the

^

Painting in Water-Colours. 337

work) one of the most straightforward and above-board of all
the forms of painting. This is the great charm of water-
colour sketches. You see the painter at work, even when
he has been dead a hundred years, you follow him in his
eag*r excitement, you pause with him in his weariness, and
the work is a living thing. The genuine water-colour sketch
has the vitality of an inspired etching, and as it has colour
besides drawing, it conveys to the spectator not only a much
more vivid impression of nature, but all that kind of sentiment
which depends exclusively on colour. The more landscape
is loved and understood, the more fine, honest water-colour
sketches are valued. They are valued for a freshness which in
itself recalls at once to memory Che freshness of the lake, the
moorland, and the ocean, of passing cloud and shadow, of the
mountain air on our faces, or the sea winds in our sails.

The genuine water-colour sketch is dependent for most of
its charm and power upon the skill with which the artist
masses together the many details of nature, so that the loss
of detail in mass shall not be too severely felt. The broad
relations of tone and colour have to be observed, and the
painter works for these, taking care that there shall be no
incongruity in the colouring of any considerable spaces which
it is his business to give boldly and decidedly with a full
brush. He does not positively exclude detail, but he only
gives just as much of it as he chooses, dealing with it gener-
ally rather by suggestion than by positive delineation. The
advantage of water-colour over the ordinary processes in 1
is that the water-colourist, in the presence of naiure, c
modify his tones by superposition and add such details as
requires as soon as his first painting is dry. The drj'ing
however, irregular, because it is dependent on the degree
heat in the atmosphere. In a southern summer it is even
loo rapid ; in the cool evenings of Scotland, water-colour
Iries so slowly that it is a serious hindrance to quick work.
remedy this inconvenience a friend of mine tried brandif

358 The Graphic Arts.

instead of water as a diluent, and found it to answer per-
fectly. I have myself painted many small studies with tube
water-colours and brandy in cool weather, and found the
combination a great convenience. Stronger or purer alcohol
does not answer so well, because common brandy ha# just
that degree of strength and purity which enables it to mix
well with the pigments whilst it is an excellent drier. Ale is
a good and pleasant medium for water-colour painting, but it
b not greatly superior to pure water as a siccative.

Few men have been so well endowed by nature for water-
colour sketching as William Miiller. He had in an extraor-
dinary degree that synthetic faculty which enables an Artist
to grasp the figgr^ate results and effects of details without
being puzzled and embarrassed by their importunity. In the
Print-room at the British Museum there is a magnificent set
of sketches by Mtiller, done in Lycia, which I would gladly
dwell upon if it were only possible to show every one of my
readers the noble works themselves. In sketching of that
highly synthetic character the qualities of the natural mate-
rials are not by any means slavishly copied, but they are
translated into another language with a vividness of under-
standing which makes such work not less remarkable as an
intellectual feat than it is obviously as a manual performance.
Mr. John Harrison, a physician learned in matters of art as
well as in his own profession, was a friend and companion
of Miiller and often saw him at work. This is his account of
Miiller's ways after his return from Lycia : —

' Miiller made a magnificent sketch, the background indicated by
a wash in the old way ; the nearer hues put in magically with a
camel-hair, but with rather a drier, crisper touch, I thought A
large ash- tree stood upon a marly, rocky bank ; the earth had
crumbled away and the roots were exposed in snake-like contor-
tions of various lengths and colour : he outlined them all, giving
every twist and turn backwards and forwards, scarcely moving his
pencil from the paper. In colouring he separated them with rapid

Painting in Water-Colonrs. 359

dark touches from each other; it seemed almost impossible to
avoid damage in this oetwork of angles and circles to the narrow
outline; but no, in a few minutes he had compassed all. This
sketch (half imperial) on white Harding paper, large trees in the
foreground, with rock-work and details of roots, &c., and the back-
ground of trees in t:radations of distance indistinctly characterised,
occupied him about the usual two hours. His rapid precision was
wonderful ; all mas done upon the spot, Miiller rarely touched upon
his sketch after he had left the ground. I thought his power of
colouring was, if possible, increased. His sketch, like his Other
works, always beautiful in suljdued tone, and in the absence of
strong colour, was even more grey and silvery than before he left
for Lycia,'

Mr. Harrison and Muller were out one day together when
the physician made a sketch of a church-tower amongst foJiage
and a river flowing through a plain, whilst the artist looked
on doing nothing. At last he could resist the old impulses
no longer, but exclaimed, 'I really must paint.'

'Accordingly,' says Mr. Harrison, ' he dipped the brush, a good-
sized hog-tool, into the white, and painted over the edges of the
clouds with broad touches, putting mine to shame; then, with
brown pink and indigo, he went over the trees by the church, car-
ried them higher, darkened them, and massed them. He worked
upon the tower, and afterwards went broadly across the meadow
plain with broken tones of warm colour, modifying the uncomforta-
ble too literal greenness I had given to the fields. Turning lo me,
he said, " My hand is not what it was, but I can make-a straight
line yet." There was a "rhine," a cutting for water-drainage run-
ninfi right across the meadows to the river. He dipped his brush
in dark colour and, holding it between his fingers without resting
his hand, drew a long line perfecdy straight from end to end, and
afterwards, with a few touches, added the reflections on the water.
He smiled rather mournfully, and returned me the sketch. " There,"
he said, " I have purposely left some of your own work untouched,"
pointing to a scrap of blue distance.'

It is plain from this account by a highly intelligent eye-
less that Miiller not only produced sketches which have

36o The Graphic Arts.

the appearance of having been done at once but that they
honestly were done so, and that he possessed in perfection
the true gifts of the sketcher. Mr. Atkinson tells us that * at
the time of this feat Miiller had got back again to white paper
and transparent colours. For the moment, with habitual
facility, he took up the materials used by Mr. Harrison, which
consisted of a large sheet of brown paper on a strainer,
zinc white, and colours ground in simple water used with
a starch medium.* Miiller had been quite accustomed to
opaque sketching also, on low-toned paper. The first sen-
tence in the following quotation from Mr. Charles Branwhite
gives evidence of Miiller's liking for a straightforward pro-
cess:—

* He cared very little for washings, but always tried to get up to
the tone at once, as I think most men do who paint in oil as well
as water. He always ground up his own white himself, and used
simple chalk and a little guro. This is a most difficult medium to
use, from the fact that when wet it is transparent and dries out
opaque, so that it is a sort of guess-work as to what colour it dries.
He always used the dry cake colours, he used to say the moist ones
were sticky. His colour-box was just the same as the one you
have seen me use, kept moist by wetting. I have often seen him
take a piece of rag the size of the box, dip it in water, and lay it
over the colours before shutting the box.*

Another witness, Mr. Robert Tucker, who had known
Miiller since his boyhood, wrote to Mr. Atkinson : —

' I had many opportunities of seeing Miiller work, and have fre-
quently admired the force and decision of his handling. He rarely
needed to erase or alter what he did, there were no pentimenti in
his practice. He had, too, that perfect mastery over his materials,
however refractory, which distinguishes great artists. He was
likewise an ambidexter, so that he could use the left hand as well
as the right. These qualities, united with great rapidity of exe-
cution, will account for the number of pictures he was able to paint
during his short career.*

Painting in Water-Colours. 361

The sj-stem of sketching practised by De Wint had great
influence in its day and was based upoti a sound principle,
De Wint seems to have had complete faith in the doctrine
that if the masses could be got right in tonic and chromatic
relation the sketch might be considered finished. So it
might, no doubt, as a sketch of masses, but the most enter-
taining sketches do not remain always quite so absolutely
faithful to this principle as those of De Wint. They admit
detail in parts where it happens to be most interesting, and
go from detail to mass, from mass back to detail, at pleasure-
Still, though not the most lively of sketches, the broad washes
of De Wint convey a good abstract of the natural landscape
when he was successful with his colour, which he was not
always. It is quite as legitimate to make an abstract of
nature by mass as by line, and by coloured masses as by
broad shades of charcoal. The only objection to transparent
sketching of this kind is that the transparence of it can never
really render the s<j!idity of nature, which is very completely
suggested by opaque painting, especially in oil. There must
always be a certain thinness in transparent water-colour, a
washiness which prevents it from looking substantial, but we
accept that exactly as we accept the opposite defect of too
much opacity in mural oil painting of a purely decorative
kind, such as that of Puvis de Chavannes.

The water sketches of Turner were generally a combination
of line and colour. We have seen already that the line with
an auxiliary wash is an extremely rapid manner of getting
form and light and shade together by a sort of duet played
by two different instruments. If the wash is in colour we get
hue in addition, which saves the artist from the necessity of
spoiling his drawing by scribbling words or signs upon it (or
tints, and is more immediately legible afterwards. But now
comes a question of a subtle and perplexing kind. The line
itself will have colour of some sort, or its negation, and so
may easily be discordant and offensive. On white paper the

362 The Grafikic Arts*

hard lead-pencil, cut to a fine point, supplies a tine of a metallie
grey, very like silver-point, and as nearly neutral as can be,
so Turner used it constantly for his water-colour sketches on
white paper, often leaving the wash extremely pale and deli-
cate, that it might not overcome the pencil line, and in some
parts, especially in distances, the pencil would be left to exe-
cute a solo passage of its own, quite without accompaniment.
This system did well for sketches in a high key of light, sudi
as Turner often executed in Italy, and particularly about
Rome j but it would not answer for dark drawings, because
in these the line would be overpowered by the wash, except
in their pale distances, and there he would sometimes use it
still* The difficulty was to choose some kind of line which
would not spoil the colour and yet would not be overcome by
it. Real black would not do at all. It had been employed
by some draughtsmen of the ei^teenth century in the timid
work which they first made out in detail, with the pen charged
with Indian ink, and then washed with vsfHous tints, but the
effect of the constant intrusion of black lines amongst colours
is always destructive of colour-effect. Indelible brown ink is
much better. A colour sketch may be done upon indelible
brown ink lines with very little offence to the eye, but this
ink is pale and soon overwhelmed, whil-st a deeper brown put
ion colour-work afterwards is too much of an interference.
Turner resolved the difficulty with characteristic audacity.
He chose red for his lines, a choice determined simply by the
chromatic difficulty, for he did not care to draw in sanguine
or red chalk alone, as the old figure-painters were accustomed
to do. The system was successful in its own way, but it has
been misunderstood. It was successful because the vermil-
ion line, instead of conveying to the eye the negation of col-
our, as a black line ,would have done, conveyed an energetic
affirmation. The sketches of Turner with the coloured wash
and the vermilion line may not be true to nature, but they
give the idea of cohur at the first glance, as fiames, even at

Painting in Water-Cuiours. 363

a distance, give the notion of heat. The red iine in Turner's
sketches has been misunderstood, because it has been taken
for a representation of nature. It is not natural, any more
than red eyes in a sanguine, and yet it is difficult to sug-
gest any kind of line which, on the whole, would have done
less harm to the chromatic effect of a colour sketch, espe-
cially when the scheme of colour was fiery, as in Turnerian
sunsets.

Turner was not by any means a slave to one system, even
in a single drawing, for he varied his manner of work accord-
ing to what seemed the necessities of the occasion. The red
line we have just spoken of is very conspicuous In a sketch
of Lausanne looking east from the terrace, yet in the same
drawing we find masses of foliage dabbed in boldly on the
modern blot system, without lines, and hardiy connected as
yet by the scarcely indicated stems. The buildings are drawn
in red lines, and so are the carriage, horses, and figures, but
these red lines cease when the painter approaches the dis-
tance, which is represented by pencil and a light wash. The
remotest Alps are simply outlined in pencil without any wash
of colour." This analysis appears to prove that Turner found
the coloured line most useful in those parts of his drawing
which were neither intended to be dark nor very pale. The
thoughtful care with which he gave it up in the distance and
sacrificed the wash itself in the remote distance, is just one
of those exercises of intelligence which distinguish fine art
from simple industry.

Turner often used line (not necessarily red) on grey paper
in combination with washes of body-colour. The brush ap-
pears to have been fuliy charged, and the wash applied with
great breadth and decision, the object being rather to realise

• So [hey are in a lovely but highly idealised sketch of Vevay, whero
the distance is trealed with much lightness and delicately melted into sky
with the brush, thereby contrasting stiongly with the etiff liny quality (^
the buildings.

364 The Graphic Arts.

an ideal in the artist's mind than any close resemblance to
nature. The noble French series, of which many, but not all,
were engraved in the ' Rivers of France,' include wonderful
examples of this kind of sketching. In some subjects the
grey paper is overcome by body-colour, but in others the paper
is itself made to play quite an important part. The * Chateau
Hamelin,' on the Loire, is on coarse grey paper washed upon
freely in body-colour without lines, but the grey of the paper
itself, quite undisguised by any tinting, is made to do for the
sky, though of course there is no gradation in it whatever.
On the other hand, there is a nameless subject of a fort, a
bridge, and two towers. The sky is lemon yellow in body-
colour, and 'so are the reflections in the water, except the red
water under the bridge and city. You would hardly know
that the sketch was on grey paper at all if there were not a
bit of it left visible in the left-hand corner.

Although no draughtsman ever knew the value of line in
sketching better than Turner did, there were times when he
felt that any linear statement of fact would be an intrusion
and spoil the mental impression by giving too positive a char-
acter to his work. There are effects so etherial that even a
delicate line would seem harsh in the midst of them, like
a telegraph wire in a mountain cloud. In * The Righi from
Lucerne,' an effect of rosy sunset light on a hill-side, and
incipient moonlight on a lake — all is interpreted by broad
washes kept purposely soft in outline, the moon and her path
of glitter being simply washed out, not drawn in any determi-
nate manner, but there they are, like the moon in Ossian.

Of all water-colour sketches, I do not know a more useful
class than little blots of colour about the size of a visiting-card.
They should be done on good paper, with a fine grain, stretched
as carefully as if for a more important work. They may be
either in transparent colour on white paper or in opaque on
grey, but for this purpose transparent water-colour is prefer-
able, because it makes use of the brightness of the paper, and

Painting in IVatef-Coloitrs. 365

fts hues are not spoiled by mixture with white, of which there
is always a risk when body-colour is used. Such studies
ought never to take a long time, it is enough if they occupy
from ten minutes to half an hour; but they should be exe-
cuted with the most conscientious care, not ac-all for detail,
but simply for relations of colour. Small and unimportant
as a sketch of that class may appear to those who know
nothing about art, it may contain more beauty of colour, and
especially more truth of relation, than many an ambitious
landscape in the Academy. The best in my possession was
done by Wyld, in the Pyrenees, early on a fine morning, and
its object was to preserve the exact relations of tone and col-
our between a pale sky and mountainous distance, and near
autumnal woods casting dark shadows on a slope of rich
green hill pasture. It carries one to the mountains at once
by the power of truthful, unexaggerated colour, and is radiant
with that luminous atmosphere which bathes mountainous
France in autumn. An extensive collection of such studies
would give a landscape-painter the diapason by which he
might keep his larger works in tune.

I cannot leave the subject of sketching from nature in
water-colour without some mention of an extraordinary gift
for it lost to the world by the premature death of Jacquemart.
He began water-colour early in life, and quitted it for etching,
in which he attained a science of drawing and a power of
interpreting the nature and quality of different materials
which astonished all the connoisseurs in Europe, and were,
in fact, entirely without precedent in the history of engraving-
It is not the place, in this chapter, to dwell upon Jacque-
mart's talents as an etcher, but I mention them for a particu-
lar reason- His study of etching had gradually developed
extraordinary powers, and when he returned to water-colour,
which he did to spare his declining strength, he found himself
in possession of an eye and hand such as rarely belong to
sketchers wi;h the brush. Nor was he, either, in the position

366 The Graphic Arts.

of a laborious commonplace engraver who tries to paint for
a change. Water-colour had been his first love, and he came
back to it with a heightened passion, as one who has wan-
dered in youth revisits well-known scenes after years of
abstinence from travel. He felt, too, the sure approach of
the day when there was to be no more sketching of any kind,
the day when his eyes would be darkened to the sunshine of
Mentone. So, having but a little while to live, and a wonder-
ful skill yet quite perfectly in his possession, he sketched with
eagerness and at speed. He had so much certainty that
there was no need of correction. His S3rstem was to use
rather a rough paper, white or slightly toned, and to leave it
everywhere as luminous as possible in the lights, with rich
darks for contrast wherever the subject allowed them. All
the accents of the brush, the washes, dashes, splashes of
colour, were left clearly visible just as he laid them, so that
his splendid knowledge of drawing and texture showed itself
like unhesitating eloquence. His manual skill was such that
he could play about his lights and reserve them, not needing
either to take them out afterwards or to put them on with
opaque colour. His experience of southern sunshine had led
him to take delight in vivid oppositions, which gave great
vivacity to his drawings. His colour was truthful but a little
crude, as natural colour often appears when translated hon-
estly on paper. He obtained a powerful expression of light
by noting all cast shadows and painting them clearly and
decisively with sharp edges and their proper relative degree
of darkness and coldness. There is absolutely no connexion
whatever between observant study of this kind, with its frank
rendering of light and dark greens, greys, and purples, and
the old-fashioned landscape study which never could rid itself
of brown.

Sketching like that of Jacquemart or Miiller, or like that
of Turner when he kept most near to nature, requires the
highest possible degree of readiness, both of hand and head.

w

Painiifig in Water- Colours. 367

student who wishes to acquire this readiness can only do
so by refusing himself ail permissiott of correction and re-
pentance. He must go straight through bis sketch, from
beginning to end, resolutely. If, when it is done, the faults
of it cause him too much mental suffering, and suggest
thoughts of suicide, the best way is to destroy the unfor-
tunate performatice at once ; and yet even a bad sketch,
done honestly from nature, generally contains some truth
which ought to be saved from annihilation, and which may
be precious afterwards. The following rules about sketching
in water-colour are founded upon the experience of accom-
plished men ; —

. Form is always to be sacrificed to colour when both

cannot be got in the time.
. If the colour is right in paleness or depth, the general
result will of necessity include sound relations of light
and shade, but these in their turn are more important,
in brush sketching, than form.
. Truth of detail is always, in a case of necessity, to be
sacrified to tnitli of mass. A blot, in right relations
of tone and colour to the rest of the work, is better
than a number of correct details out of tune.
■4. Freshness is a greater virtue in a sketch than strict
accuracy either of form, light and shade, or colour.
A laboured sketch is a spoiled sketch.
Bj. Inequality of work is not an evil in sketches. They
may be detailed in one place, and in broad, formless
masses elsewhere, without inconvenience.
. All executive defects, which are simply the results of
speed, and not of ignorance, are perfectly admissible
in sketches. No intelligent critic requires an artist
to put those perfections into them which cost much
time and labour.

368 The Graphic Arts*

The reader has seen that corrections are hardly admissible
in sketching, but it is an error to suppose that water-colour
painting, done deb'berately in the studio with all the resources
and conveniences of the art, does not permit alteration. The
best answer to a popular error on this subject was given to
me by a water-colourist of great experience in these words :
* I can take a piece of paper,' he said, * and provided that the
quality of it is sound and strong, and that it is sufficiently
sized, I can paint a finished water-colour upon it, in any tones
you please, and then turn it upside down and paint another
landscape on the same paper with the sky where the fore-
ground was and the foreground where the sky was, and the
drawing shall go to an exhibition where nobody shall be able
to guess how the paper has been treated.' * The boldness
of this shows the temper in which an experienced artist
works. Confident in his own resources, he treats his mate-
rials with the perfect determination to make them acknowledge
him as master.

Another great difference between sketching and painting
in water-colour is, that in painting the tones are often got
by superposition, whilst there is not time to get them so in
sketching, which has to be done with the greatest possible
directness.

Superposition is certainly more important in water-colour
painting than in oil, because since water-colour is less sub-
stantial there is a closer connexion between the different lay-
ers of pigment Transparent water-colour is nearly what oil
would be if it were all glazing, and even then the connexion
between a colour and one laid over it is not so close in oil

* The first painting in an experiment of this kind would of course
have to be removed by sponging. I have perfect confidence in my friend's
assertion, for he was an English artist of great experience, not given to
hyperbole, but I suspect that he would have to take away the surface of
the paper itself where the new sky had to be painted, as the foreground
of the first picture would stain it a little. He would also use a little
body-colour in his second picture.

Painting in Water-Colours. 369

because oil varnish is a thicker vehicle than water. The
elder Leslie disapproved of getting colour in oil by gladng
a hue over a very different preparatory one, his principle
being to get as near the hue as he could in the first painting,
and this principle has since been authoritatively adopted in
the schools of art as the safest for students, hut it would not
be maintained with the same authority in water-colour. True
transparent water-colour is often little more than a delicate
kind of staining. If you pass a light wash of gamboge over
white paper the paper is stained yellow, and a light wash of
cobalt over that produces a greenish stain. Again, it is well
known that transparent colours washed one over another do
not produce the same chromatic effect as if they were mixed,
or anything like it.

The reader will excuse me if I do not go farther into this
question of superposition. He will never really understand
it unless he goes through the usual experiments, which con-
sist in washing one colour over another in gradated bands
and carefully taking note of the results. Those results are
always interesting to anyone who cares at all about the sub-
ject, and often surprising. The general effect of superposi-
tion as compared with mixture is to obtain greater purity and
brightness, because mixed pigments so often sully each other,
but it requires great knowledge, and great faith in one's own
knowledge, to plan and carry out the colouring of a whole
picture on this principle, to paint blue what we intend to be
purple, and red or yellow what we intend to be a neutralised
or a luminous green, I will, however, mark one or two rules
which are generally applicable 10 all superposition of trans-
parent colours.

I. When colours are painted over their chromatic oppo-
sifes they are made less intense, being to a certain extent
neutralised.

1 colours are painted over more luminous nearly
pelated colours tliey appear brighter.

370 The Graphic Arts.

3. When the ground colour is gradated in one direction
and the superposed colour in another an elaborate effect of
counterchanging hues is produced which is often exceedingly
agreeable to the eye.

Some modern painters in water-colour have been at great
pains to produce effects by the juxtaposition of pure colours
in a kind of interhatching. This requires infinite industry
and skill, and although brilliant effects have been produced
by it, I believe that on the whole it may be condemned as
a waste of time. I think so for this reason. Hatching is a
very poor process so far as executive expression is concerned,
whereas the simple wash, with a full brush, is a very fine
means of executive expression, and in my view this kind of
expression, which puts the soul of the artist into his work,
is a far higher and more valuable quality than the toilsome
imitation of the play of blue and green in minute touches on
a pigeon's neck or a peacock's tail. A great deal of admira*
tion has been bestowed upon the birds' nests, toadstools, &c.,
of William Hunt, who was, no doubt, a very meritorious
artist, with a cultivated sense of colour and a keen eye for
the minute beauties of nature, but when you compare his
workmanship, all in little streaks and spots of pigment, with
the comprehensive washes of the great synthetic water-colour
men, you cannot but admit that the genius of style was on
their side rather than on his. Your tiny touches of pure
colour side by side may look like jewels, they may resemble
so many little turquoises and bits of lapis lazuli, but with all
your craft they will never, though you toil at them to weari-
ness, be the expression of intellectual energy. Such jewel-
setting is like the elaboration of tinkling syllables in literature,
which may be acceptable enough in some tiny poem on a sub-
ject of little interest, but would be out of place in a page of
serious narrative or argument.

This is not intended to condemn the use of stipple abso-
lutely, but stipple and interhatching are not the same thing4

Painting in Water-Coloiirs. 371

In true stipple the ground is left to play between the specks
of added colour, in inlerhatcliing the ground is covered with
a minute mosaic intended to produce an efEect of mingled
colour upon the eye. It has been observed already that a
mottled appearance sometimes results from the subsidence
of atoms of colour in ihe hollows of grained paper and that
this is especially common when the colours employed are
dark. There is an excellent instance of this in ' A Welsh
Hollow by Twilight,' by Alfred Hunt, exhibited in May 1871,
and now in the possession of my friend Professor Oliver, of
Kew. Here all the dark blue-greys in the clouds have mot-
tled, with fine effect, and the artist has carefully touched them
afterwards with red playing amongst them beyond the moun-
tain crest. There is no objection to this, for it produces a
good effect at a reasonable cost of time, but it is certainly a
waste of intellect to produce a colour by putting grains of
two opposttes side by side when it can be got right in hue by
superposition or by mixture.*

Few painters have impressed upon me the necessity for
delicacy in water-colour so strongly as Alfred HunL He has
it in the supreme degree, and it is probably owing to this
cause that although he does not often employ bright pig-
ments, but confines himself almost entirely to quiet ochres
and the like, his works are brilliant in colour as well as light.
The poetry of distance, which this distinguished artist has -
so often conveyed to those who are capable of feeling it,
is dependent upon distinctions between pale tones incom-
parably finer than the recognised differences in musical nota-
tion, and resembling rather those faint indescribable sounds
of murmuring wind or water which come to us from afar.
Besides this delicacy of tone, a real master of water-colour

• An especial difficulty in inlerhatching is that of carrying a gradation
steadily and aucceisfully through any large space of it. The only good
of it seems lo be 1 certain play of colour, which is not one of the nio5t
serious qnaliiies of art.

372 The Graphic Arts.

has the art of treating the edges of colour-divisions in the
most various ways so as to convey the most different ideas.
Sometimes they are sharp and clear, at others so soft, so
melting, so difficult to trace, that you cannot tell where one
space ends and another begins. The paper may' be left
white in parts, and it will be impossible to say where it first
ceases to be white, and where colour first blooms upon it like
the earliest tinge of dawn. Again, in water-colour of the
best kind, all the defects and inconveniences of the process
are taken advantage of and turned into qualities. Thinness
and slightness become an etherial expression of space and
air ; what in inferior hands would only be confusion and in-
distinctness becomes enchanting mystery ; the rebelliousness
of a colour that will not wash quite perfectly is turned to
account in texture. The total result is something which,
though it lacks the strength and solidity of oil, is nearer to
the most delicate appearances of nature. The oil-paintings
of Turner and Alfred Hunt, whatever may be their other
merits, are not equal in this quality to their water-colours ;
still less should we compare with them the heavy studies of
landscape which figure-painters often execute in the present
day — studies displaying considerable science, but destitute
of that close and passionate affection for the refinements of
mystery and colour, without which the outer world is only so
much tangible matter and can never be an enchanted dream.
It is a matter of regret that the vignette has not been
more cultivated in recent water-colour. It has the advantage
of being able to deal successfully with many interesting
things in nature which do not supply material enough for a
picture, and as we always see nature itself in vignettes they
are one of the most rational forms of graphic art. The very
melting away of the objects into nothingness round the edges
of the drawing is in itself poetical, because it reminds us of
the evanescence of our own impressions in memory; and
perhaps, also, it may more distantly recall the condition of

Painting in Waler-Colours.

373

human knowledge generally, in which a few things, compara-
tively well seen, are surrounded by things seen less and
less distinctly, which in their turn are bounded by a blank.
Whatever may be the cause, there is something poetical in
the vignette, something in the mere form of the drawing
which inclines the artist to see things with a poet's eye.
Turner was sometimes prosaic in oblong drawings, but hardly
ever, lo my recollection, in a vignette; whilst many artists,
far inferior to him in feeling, have been lifted above their
more commonplace habits of thought by the demand for
grace and elegance which the vignette seemed to make upon
them.

^^'It is time now to examine the water-colour palette, but, as
'we have gone fully into the choice of pigments for chromatic
reasons in th£ chapter on Oil-painting, it will not be necessary
to investigate that part of the subject a second time. The
reader will find in that chapter a full account of the principles
on which palettes must be arranged, and on which they
always have been arranged, unavoidably. He will see that
there is no triad of pigments from which all tints in nature
can be composed, that a palette is never and can never
be chromatically complete unless it contains both dull and
brilliant pigments; and that, although it is by no means
essential to chromatic completeness that they should be very
numerous, it is not possible, however great the genius of the
colourist, to obtain all the hues of nature from an exceedingly
restricted palette. I have shown that the pigments have
to be chosen in obedience to a certain law, to which artists
unconsciously conform, and which results from the nature of
their materials, and I have given lists, progressively more
and more numerous, of pigments which associate helpfully
together and may be used without risking durability.
Jt remains only to point out certain differences in the use

374 ^^ Graphic Arts*

of the colouring substances employed in oil and in water.
The palettes used may be essentially the same in both arts,
but it so happens that certain pigments can be used more
conveniently, or with less likelihood of subsequent deteriora-
tion, in one art than in the other.

All the varieties of white lead have to be rejected in water-
colour, as they are liable to blacken unless protected by oil
or varnish. The white made from barytes is the best of
those known to us hitherto. It passes under the name of
Chinese white. We have seen that Miiller * ground up his
white himself, and used simple chalk and a little gum,' an
objectionable medium because it is transparent in use and
opaque after it has dried. Field says that whitening is a
basis * of many common pigments and colours used in dis-
temper, paper-staining, &c.'

Naples Yellow is objectionable in water-colour for the same
reason as the lead whites, being * liable to change even to
blackness by damp and impure air when used as a water-
colour or unprotected by oil or varnish.* Gamboge is a well^
known water-colour yellow very little employed in oil for
which it is much less suitable. It dissolves in water natu-
rally. Samuel Palmer said that it had stood for thirty years
of exposure to ordinary light when laid on thickly, but that
when thin it fades slightly. He used washed gamboge also,
and said that the washing removed the greenish gum from it
and rendered the colour more opaque. He did not us<
Indian Yellow, and one hesitates about recommending it
because it is said to be not lasting, but Mr. Wyld believes
it to be quite sound, and says* that 'nothing replaces its
brilliancy.' It has stood quite well for forty years in his
drawings.*

Water-colour painters often use indigo, another colour

♦ It is very difficult to reconcile this fact with Mr. Linton's assertion
that Indian Yellow belongs to the most evanescent class of colours, t
give both sides of the question, and decline all responsibility.

Painting in Waur-Colours. 375

which is not considered permanent, indeed Mr. Linton says
that 'it fades rapidly in the liglit.' Prussian blue, which the
same authority includes amongst rejected colours, is used by
some water colour artists who are very careful about perma-
nence ; for example, Samuel Palmer used it.

Emerald Green {Vert Viron^se), also used by Palmer, is
more eligible for water than for oil, but must not be mixed
with Cadmium, Palmer liked the mixed green which Emer-
ald Green gives in combination with Raw Sienna.

Sap Green is exclusively a water-colour pigment which is
much employed because it is delightfully transparent, of a
fine colour, and very pleasant to use, but it ought to be re-
jected, in spite of all these attractive qualities, as it attracts
moisture, is liable to mildew, and is not durable.

Bistre is excellent in water. Palmer called it 'a grand
colour, the Asphaltura of water-colours.' Of sepia, which
also belongs' specially to water-colour, he said that William
Hunt was believed to have got in the light and shade of his
drawings with that pigment and blue.

Indian Ink has been employed much in water-colour, and
a stick of it used to accompany the cakes in boxes before
moist colours were invented, but now it appears to be re-
jected for strong blacks in tube. The qualities of it have
been described in another chapter.

This is all that needs to be said especially about pigments
used in water-colour. It has been observed already that
there are great differences in the facility with which the dif-
ferent materials may be used, because water-colour of the
transparent kind depends on washes. For example, a gam-
boge wash is facility itself, whereas ultramarine, as Palmer
said, ' almost requires an apprenticeship to learn how to wash
with it.' There is no necessity for criticising the pigments
one by one with reference to this quality, as it is soon ascer-
tained by experiment, and, besides, there are differences in
the same pigment when it is more or less thoroughly grouted.

376 The Graphic Arts*

Water-colours are sold in four forms, in cakes, pastilles,
pans, and tubes. The cake system is the oldest, and it has
the advantage of keeping the pigments ready for use an
indefinite length of time, but it is often a vexatious interrup-
tion to work, especially in the heat of inspiration, to have to
rub a cake patiently on a slab. It may be endured in the
quiet of the studio, but in the hurry of sketching from nature
it is intolerable.

The pastille is a French system, much liked by some artists
who use French colours so prepared, though English pigments
are believed to be of superior quality in themselves. Pastilles
are thin round cakes, an inch and a quarter in diameter,
which are between the old hard cake and the modern moist
colour as to softness. They can be handled without soiling
the fingers, and yet they easily give off colour on being wetted.
The custom is to fasten them in little recesses sunk on pur-
pose for them in the box, and to take the colour with the
brush. The objection, of course, to this habit is that one
colour soon gets upon another as the brush transfers touches
of pigment from place to place, but if the brush is often
washed and if the pastilles themselves are washed from time
to time the inconvenience is not very seriously felt. Besides
this some artists of experience maintain that in water-colour
(though not in oil) it is not an evil that pigments should be
very much intermixed. Mr. Wj|d is attached to the pastille
system and mixes all his tints as they come easiest to hand^
and with the brush, never troubling himself about any methodi-
cal arrangement, and working in perfect unconsciousness
of how the tone is got or with what materials. I have said
already that there are two exceptions. Yellow Ochre and
Cobalt, which Mr. Wyld keeps in a state of purity some-
where, but the rest of the box and palette is always in a dim
grey russet muddle, and out of this general muddle or con-
fusion of tertiary tints the painter gets all his most delicate
greys and finest neutral masses. The tints, which are quite

Painting in Water-Colours. 377

really and truly dirt upon the palette, and unworthy of any
higher tide, become pure and powerful colour when set in
their places in tlie picture: such is the magical effect of
neighbourhood upon hues. Sir John Gilbert uses papier-
mach6 palettes with an enamelled surface, and he has three
or four of them all dirty at the same lime and never cleaned ;
a space may be cleaned occasionally when required for pure
colour, or for some definite fresh mixture, but the palette
itself is not.

The pan system is simply that of putting moist colours into
little porcelain trays from which they are taken up by the
brush as required. This system came into favour on account
of the facility afforded by it for working from nature before
tubes were used for water-colour, and it appears to have held
its ground, as moist colours in pans are still constantly ad-
vertised by the colourmen. In convenience it resembles the
pastilles, except that as the colours are in a much softer state
they are still more easily taken up with the brush, Samuel
Palmer expressed a strong dislike to this system, on the
ground that it wears out the brushes, and is very dirty, for
the colours necessarily get sullied one with another, besides
which it is impossible to get a sufficiently large amount of
colour out at once for certain purposes.

By far the most convenient system ever invented is the
tube system, adopted from oils. Unluckily it- so happens
that water-colours in tube, as they are usually prepared, get
hard after a time, and can no longer be expelled by pressure.
The different pigments differ very widely in this respect, for
some of them, such as French Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow,
and Yellow Ochre, can be kept almost indefinitely, whilst
others, such as Chinese White, Lemon Yellow, Naples Yel-
low, and Rose Madder, solidify in a few months. I see that
a colour-maker now advertises moist colours in tube which

e said to be specially prepared so as to avoid this incon-
nnience and to be serviceable even in hot climates. If this

378 The Graphic Arts.

really is so they will be a great addition to the comfort of
painters in water-colour. Meanwhile there is still the resource,
adopted by Samuel Palmer, of having those pigments in tube
which keep well and a reserve of the others in cake.

It is not generally of very much practical use to tell ama-
teurs and young artists how they ought to mix their colours,
because it is impossible to remember the receipts for several
hundreds of mixtures such as may be found on any dirty
palette, where they are infinite. The proper way is to learn
a few very simple principles of mixture, such as these : If
you take a pigment, no matter which, and make experiments
with it, you will very soon discover, if you are observant, that
it has special affinities with some other pigments, by which it
can be easily and pleasantly modified, just as in language a
word will go naturally into some inflexions and more awk-
wardly into others, or as, in anatomy, there is a certain mor-
phology by which we pass quite easily from certain animal
structures to those which immediately follow them. I may
take as an example the action of Vermilion upon Yellow
Ochre. If you add a little Vermilion to Yellow Ochre you
do not neutralise it, but simply modify it and turn it into
Red Ochre at once. If you add a little black to French
Ultramarine the blue is not spoiled, but darkened and made
less intense ; in fact, it becomes very like Indigo. Cobalt is
supposed to be blue, and so, no doubt, it is, but a blue so
nearly on the verge of green that an atom of yellow greens it
immediately. By going through the pigments in this way you
discover that they have certain affinities and sympathies, and
you find that they can be arranged by these affinities not only
in pairs but even in triads. You find out also that pigments
have antipathies, that, as they are pleasantly modified by
those they like, they are fouled by those they dislike, and by
the time that you have gone through a great many experi-
tnents the principle of modification will be quite clear to you
-*I mean that you will be able to get this or that quality by

Painting in Water-Colours, 379

mixture exactly as pigeon -breeders do. The knowledge of
this is worth any quantity of receipts, which are seldom appli-
cable to the case in point, for the slightest change of effect in
nature will make a receipt useless. However, as the reader
may expect to find a few examples of mixed tints, I give hiin
the following, which were communicated to me by Samuel

' In sketching skies, Cobalt may be used over Orange Cadmium,
or, if the paper is brownish. Cobalt with a litlle white. A very
little Orange Cadmium tones the Cobalt agreeably when you use
white paper.

■ For grey, as in clouds. Cobalt may be used with Light Red ; for
a rather more purplish tint, Cobalt with Venetian Red | if the tint
is required to be still more purple, Cobalt may be used with Indian
Red. Prussian Blue insiead of Cobalt with these reds will make
greys also, but on a deeper key and less bloomy. For a very purple
grey, Cobalt may be used with Brown Madder, and if it is desired
that it should be on a deep key, Prussian Blue may be used witi
the Madder insiead of Cobalt

' Cobalt and Cologne Earth- make a tint useful in twilights.
Darker greys may be made of every variety of hue by mixing the
cool greens with the madders.

' Cobalt, Light Red, and Yellow Ochre, are very useful pigments
for distances. With these three pigments eighteen tints in the list
of prismatic opposiles may be made. These greys will do for tree-
trunks, rocks, earths, &c. A very good ground colour for greys of
roads, tree-trunks, Sk., is a wash of Vandyke Brown. For the
most delicate greys, Cobalt and Yellow Ochre may be used with
Pink Madder.

'The following combinations rnake valuable greens; — The
green Oitide of Chromium with Raw Sienna makes a beautiful ,
sober green. Emerald Green and Raw Sienna make lints like the
beautiful natural greens of trees, and allow you to have ihem more
or less yellowish, as you want. For the green of trees in spring,
after drawing them in pencil, either wash them with Emerald Green
and glaze with Raw Sienna (or vke vitrsd), or else mix the tiattro.
the palette. Prussian Blue and Burnt S\eTin4 ma.Ve a. ^litii tJCx-^^.

380 The Graphic Arts.

green for the darker modelling in trees. A deep green may be got
by the union of Gamboge with Prussian Blue and a very de'^ cool
green by mixing Prussian Blue with Vandyke Brown. Gamboge
and Ivory Black give a very deep green. Gamboge and Bistre
give a deep, greenish, golden brown. Ivory Black and Raw Sienna
supply a very deep colour inclining to green, which is very usefuL
All these greens are convertible into browns by glazing or inter-
hatching, or by adding red ; for instance, Burnt Sienna may be
added for a warm and strong tint, and Pink Madder for cooler and
retiring tints.

' A good ground colour for gold cornfields is Orange Cadmium
with a little white.'

Field said that a water-colour painter should use nothing
but distilled water, and next to that filtered rain-water. It
is very often impossible to wash certain colours with hard
or impure water. Samuel Palmer recommended the student
to use, if possible, four waters — i. For white for cool mix-
tures. 2. For white to be used in warm mixtures. 3. For
warm colours. 4. For cool colours. Few artists would have
patience to distinguish between them, but they might, at any
rate, have arrangements for changing the water frequently.

Opaque water-colour has made great progress from the
days of Paul Sandby to those of Sir John Gilbert Sandby's
work was bold and rather coarse, essentially like scene-
painting (as in the * Ancient Beech-tree,' at South Kensing-
ton), and not at all rivalling oil ; whereas, Sir John Gilbert's
work really has most of the qualities of oil.

He uses tube colours on a palette, sometimes without dilut-
ing them, using the colour thick and strong as it comes out
of the tube and requiring hog brushes, often of a good size,
to master it. He has a preference for these manly instru-
ments. When the colours are a little diluted he uses beer or
stale ale as a medium, and also a wax water megilp prepared
by Reeves of Cheapside. * A little on the palette,' he says,
* to be taken up by the tip of the brush, gives great strength,

Painting in Waier-Cohttrs. 381

richness, and force to the colour ; but it must not be used so
much as to make the surface shine when dry.'

This is the most substantial kind of water-colour painting
known. It is as nearly as possible the same process as oil-
painting, since it includes glazing, scumbling, and impasto ;
and Sir John is not satisfied without approaching the depths
of tone and the richness of surface which he aims at in oil
itself.

Artists have sometimes been blamed, in what seems a
narrow-minded spirit, for using opaque water-colour, as if
there were something wrong in it. There is no valid reason
whatever against its employment, but the question may be
reasonably asked why, instead of rivalling oil with an aqueous
medium, the artists who have conquered that difficulty should
not simply paint oil-pictures ? Is there any especial quality
in opaque water-colour which oil does not possess f

Yes, there is deadness of surface, but this is only applicable
to drawings preserved in portfolios, for {as we have seen in
the Raphael cartoons at Kensington and some frescoes at
Westminster) the good of a dead surface is sacrificed when
a glass is put before it. Opaque water-colours may be more
easily lodged dian oil pictures, as they can be kept in cabi-
nets — a great advantage for studies. I am inclined to be-
lieve that the practice of this kind of water-colour merely
for purposes of study would be very convenient to oil-painters,
who often find themselves unpleasantly embarrassed by ordi-
nary transparent water-colour, because it is too remote from
their own habits, which might be continued in Sir John Gil-
bert's opaque process with only this difference that it does
not permit so much deliberation as oil. I have tried it, not
as a pursuit but simply as an expieriment, and have found
after working a few days in it that as there were hog-tools,
and tube-colours, and a palette, with the possibility of loading,
impasto, scumbling, and glazing, the whole process felt so
like oil that it required an e£fort of memory to be sure that
it was something else.

382 The Graphic Arts.

Sir John's Gilbert's palette is composed of Chinese White,
Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Brown Ochre,
Light Red, Venetian Red, Indian Red, Vermilion, Indian
Lake, Antwerp Blue, Prussian Blue, Indigo, French Ultra-
marine, Cobalt, Vandyke Brown, Ivory Black. He adds
bright yellows, extract of vermilion, &c., when required. An
important point in Sir John Gilbert's practice is that he paints
his backgrounds first, up to their full force. He strongly
advocates this because it compels the artist to paint the
figures with all the force he can ; whereas if the figures are
painted first on a white background, it is most likely that
they will have to be gone over again to keep the background
in its place, or else the background will be painted weakly on
purpose to prevent it from coming before the figures.

In this, as in all opaque processes, it is of the utmost im-
portance that the touches by which vigorous accent is con-
veyed should be left absolutely undisturbed, as, if they are
meddled with they lose their special virtue. It follows that
they should be established from the first in right chromatic
relation to the work that lies beneath them. The crispness
and decision of these touches may be but little interfered
with by a glaze, but it should be applied rapidly and not so
as to dissolve any of the opaque pigment.

I cannot leave water-colour painting without speaking of
the papers used by artists, though the subject is an extremely
difficult one, for this reason : All hand-made papers are liable
to inequalities of manufacture, so that if I were to recommend
any one of them strongly it might easily happen that a new
supply of what was nominally the same paper did not bear
out my recommendation, I am told by an old painter in
water-colour that it is not possible in the present day to get
paper an3nvhere which will stand rough usage (such as a
painter who corrects much will inflict upon it), as well as cer-
tain English papers manufactured in the early years of the
present century. Very fine^ thick, rich-looking papers, with

Painting in IValer- Co lours. 383

admirable surfaces, rough or smooth, may be procured from
the artists' colourmen ; and here I come back to advice al-
ready given about colours, that is, to try experiments, for no
artist can act with safety on the recommendation of another.
These things are aSairs of idiosyncrasy. A man is so con-
stituted at his birth that he will naturally have an affinity for
a particular kind of paper, and be able to maJte very good
use of it, whereas another will condemn it as unserviceable.
Creswick liked one sort of paper, Harding another, Catter-
mole a third; the manufacturers tried to please them, and
made papers which bear their names. Some fine papers bear
the famous name of Whatman, the manufacturer, others that
of Canson, the French maker, of Annonay. The Creswick
and Harding papers are rather absorbent, both toned suffi-
ciently to take off the crudeness of pure white. The Harding
is of two kinds, one verj' strong, with a considerable tone and
a diagonal grain broad and visible, the other much thinner,
paler, and with a fine grain. Cattermole had a paper made
to imitate (in a superior quality) a kind formerly used by the
wholesale grocers, which was found good for sketching upon
with opaque colour. The Cattermole is a light brown, but
still darker in tone than the ordinary tinted papers. Canson
makes a considerable variety in greys and cream tones, and
his large paper in rolls is very good for monochrome sketches
done to be photographed, but the while of it is too chilly for
works in colour. It may be accepted as a principle that
although paper for water-colour may be what is called white
it should not be chilly ; it may have the whiteness of newly-
cut ivory, but not that of snow under a grey sky. Samuel
Palmer held the theory that amongst pigments Flake White
is not like light, but is in hue a cold shadow colour, though
of a very light pitch. To make it resemble light it requires
to be scumbled when dry with a creamy tint of itself mixed
with a little orange or golden yellow. So it mi^htVicisi'im-
tained that chilly white papers are not reaW-^ ne\l^.Ia\,\>^JX^■aN«.

384 The Graphic Arts*

the nature of shade, and as an artist likes to be helped by
his paper instead of hindered, he is wise to avoid them.

As to the grain of papers, I think it may be considered a
settled question that, although there may be reasons for em-
ploying papier verge (that with parallel wire-marks) in char-
coal drawing, it should be avoided in water-colour, as the
pigments settle in the hollows and make unpleasant lines.
Even the more broken diagonal grain of Harding's paper is
less agreeable than the scattered grain of the Creswick, which
leads the eye in no particular direction. Papers are made of
the most various degrees of coarseness in grain, and artists
of great refinement have often used very coarse papers, just
as Leighton chose a very rough mortar for his painting of
the * Arts of War,' but it is a safe rule to avoid coarse papers
in small works. Turner even used Bristol boards for his
vignettes, as ivory is used for miniatures. In large works it is
different ; in them coarseness has a practical use by prevent-
ing a too perfect sharpness of edges, which become as sharp
as it is desirable that they should be at a little distance.*

When body-colour is employed freely the paper is generally
tinted, and it is better to have the tint either decidedly warm,
as in the yellow papier Buhl, or else decidedly cold, as in the
French grey papers. All painting is founded upon the con-
trast between warm and cool colouring, and if your tinted
paper gives one of the two quite decidedly, it will help you
for half your work, your own business then being to counter-

* The reader may like to know that a coarse paper can always be
turned into a smooth one, in parts where the artist desires it, by the use
of the burnisher, and if in large spaces by the roller of an etcher's press.
You can burnish the space occupied by faces and hands, or yod can have
the coarseness taken out of the paper for a sky, whilst you preserve it for
a foreground. If any reader is disposed to undervalue the importance of
a grain in papers used for water-colour, let me remind him that the very
greatest painters in oil have liked coarse canvases, which they made
smooth intentionally in certain parts by putting pigment enough i^>on
them to fill up the spaces between the threads.

Painting in Water-Colours, 385

act its influence by colouring in the otiier half. Since, how-
ever, it happens that the opposition between cold and warm
colour is seldom equal in the same drawing, which will gen-
erally, taken as a whole, be either a cool drawing or a warm
one, the best way seems to be to use one or the other kind
of paper, according to the predominance of heat or coldness
in the general scheme of the work. Turner was exceedingly
fond of grey, even of dark gr«y. A living artist has made a
large collection of rapid sketches on a beautiful grey note-
paper. In landscape, grey papers help greatly in large spaces
of sky and water, under cool effects, such as those of rainy
weather. '

It is well to remember that the artist himself has always
the resource of tinting white paper with a tint of his own
mixing, which may be of any hue that he prefers. This was
constantly done by the old masters tor their silver-point draw-
ings and other works. Turner did it for a certain class of
bold sketches, in which he freely employed black chalk for
guiding lines, transparent water-colour for shades, and either
body-colour or knife-scratching for his lights.

This chapter ought not to come to an end without a few
words on brushes, but it will be unnecessary to tell the reader
that the brushes commonly used in water-colour are either
camel-hair or sable. Men who are accustomed to work in
oil make more than occasional use of their own tools —
sables, badger-hair softeners, and even hogs' brisdes — in
water-colour also, and often with excellent effect. I may
observe that a large camel-hair brush, if it comes to a fine
point, as it ought to do, is in itself both a broad tool and a
delicate one. for it will give either a broad wash or a delicate
line, and a complete sketch may be made with it. All
brushes should be kept with the greatest care and in perfect
cleanliness. A good recent invention for the protection of
brushes used for sketching from nature, is the sliding handle
by which they are withdrawn into a tube when not in use, on

386 The Graphic Arts.

the principle of the pencil-case. Samuel Palmer was so
careful to preserve the elasticity of his brushes and the
quality of their points, that he would not use them for rub-
bing up any colour that had dried upon the palette, but did
it with his finger, and only used the brush when the pigment
was ready.

Comparison of Water-Colour with Nature, — The practice
of transparent water-colour has been so closely connected
with the study of landscape directly from nature, on account
of the convenience of the process, which is cleanly and rapid,
and of the facility with which studies made by it can be car-
ried and preserved, that we might infer a peculiar technical
adaptation to landscape. There are, no doubt, in the pro-
cesses of transparent water-colour, certain conditions which
are highly favourable to some landscape effects, such as the
misty and cloudy effects which are common in the mountain-
ous parts of our own island, but if you take landscape nature
as a whole, including massive substance as well as aerial
appearance, I think it must be admitted that oil-painting will
approach more nearly to its qualities. There is, however,
one special advantage in water-colour, which is, that when
rightly followed it encourages great delicacy of observation,
so that a highly-trained water-colour artist will see many
refinements in natural landscape which the more powerful
oil-painter may very easily overlook. Besides, the mere fact
that a kind of painting is less powerful than another is not at
all a reason why it should not be practised. Thfe excessive
love of power in the fine arts usually either comes from sheer
vulgarity, which always wants strong sensations, or else from
inexperience and ignorance of what has been done, the sort
of ignorance which is unable to see the distinction between
delicacy and weakness. It is not at all necessary that a kind
of drawing or painting should have the force and solidky of
nature ; it is far more essential that it should allow of ani-

Painting in Water-Colours. 387

mated artistic expression, and in this transparent water-colour
has few rivals.

Opaque water-colour approaches much more nearly to the
force of oil in the imitation of natural objects, and is there-
fore a better means for the study of tangible things — such
as rocks, vegetation, and even living bodies. The surprising
truth which may be attained in the representation of nature
by opaque water-colour is proved by the works of John
Lewis, in which object-study is carried to the utmost limit
attainable by keen sight and imitative faculties of the highest
order. Object-studies in the same materials, of far inferior
excellence to these, would still be most valuable possessions
even to a painter in oil. I am speaking, just now, of truth
only, and of a special kindvof truth in the representation
of tangible objects seen clearly and close at hand without
the glamour of any visual enchantment. Such work has the
sharp clearness of the best old tempera painting, which is
not suited to everything and is incapable of dealing with the
varieties of natural effect, but which, nevertheless, presents
with extreme precision every visible fact of structure.

A third kind of water-colour, composed of transparent and
opaque work at the artist's discretion, is better adapted than
either of the preceding to the exact rendering of nature,
because in nature itself we are constantly meeting with ob-
jects and effects in which transparence and opacity are visible
side by side, or one of them above or through the other.

^88 The Gri^hic Arts.

CHAPTER XXIII.

PAINTING ON TAPESTRY.

IT very rarely happens that an imitation is superior to the
thing imitated, but so it really is in the case of painted
tapestry, certainly a higher kind of art than the costly manufac-
ture for which it is a comparative^ cheap substitute.

Woven tapestry is a slow and tedious copy of a drawing with-
out any of the intellectual or manual freedom enjoyed by the
artist who made the original, but as it is one of the most ex-
pensive of all manufactures it is prized for the associated idea of
wealth, and there is a certain poetry connected with it, because
it was used in princely and baronial houses in the ages most
frequently chosen by poets for the scenes of their inventions.
Tapestry of the old-fashioned woven kind is a poetical * prop-
erty ' in Shakespeare and Scott, whilst the proof that it has not
lost its charm and interest is that the most recent of our poets,
Matthew Arnold and Morris, have also made good use of it.

But although there cannot be a doubt that woven tapestry,
especially if it be old, is a poetical kind of wall-decoration, there
is a certain inconsistency in the world's wa)rs of regarding this
and other forms of copied or translated art. People have a
feeling of contempt for copies done in oil from pictures in oil —
a contempt so sincere that they will not buy them, except at.
very low prices, and although a museum of copies done by able
men would be interesting in the absence of the originals, the
attempt made by Thiers to found such a Museum in Paris was
discouraged and discontinued. On the other hand, a copy in

Painting on Tapestry. 389

tapestry from a distemper cartoon was valued more than the
original, though it could not be so exact as if it had been done
in the same material, and at the very time when the Museum of
Copies was abandoned the French Government was paying for
copies in tapestry from portraits in oil, the tapestries to fill panels
in the Gallery of Apollo in the Louvre, and the originals to be
given, when done with, to little provincial museums.

What is woven tapestry composed of? Simply of dyed
threads placed side by side. But, supposing that the tapestry
were woven all in white threads at first and that they were dyed
afterwards, with a brush, would not that be exactly the same
thing and less troublesome to make, if the artist, instead of
painting a distemper cartoon on paper, did his work in dyes on
the white tapestry itself? Besides this, would it not be better
to have the artist's own original performance on the tapestry
than an imperfect copy of it made by weavers with many
threads? These questions suggested themselves to some artists
who knew the value of original work in art and appreciated the
decorative effect of tapestry at the same time, and their answer
was to make a series of experiments which led to very remark-
able results.

Canvases are now made of any size and exactly like tapestry
in quality of material, so far as the eye can judge. They are
very different in texture, so that the painter may choose that
which answers most exacdy to the nature of his intended work.
The white tapestry to be painted is stretched on a frame of
wood much in the same way as the canvas for a picture, and
the artist begins his labour by a drawing of the whole subject,
generally pounced with charcoal dust from a pricked outline on
paper of the same size. After having removed the cartoon he
Aaws all the outlines completely on the tapestry itself with a
pointed brush and thin colour. The tapestry is shaken to get
rid of the charcoal and is now ready for colouring.

The colours for tapestry- painting are all used as glazes. As
ive explained elsewhere, a glaze has nothing to do with shine

390 The Graphic Arts.

of surface, as is often imagined, it is simply called so because it
is transparent, like coloured glass. In tapestry painting the pig-
ments never shine, they are as dull as fresco, but at the same
time they have no body and no opacity. They are, in fact,
as nearly as possible like the most transparent water-colours.
They are all liquid dyes, and kept in glass bottles with stoppers.
They include all pigments necessary for the production of com-
plete colour. The palette is replaced by a little table that can
be raised or lowered to the required height, covered with little
pots of liquid colour arranged in chromatic order, with a slab
slighdy hollowed in the middle for mixtures. The brushes are
of hogs' hair, and some of them are short, almost like stencilling
brushes. The diluent is a solution of picric acid in water, and
a solution of hyperchlorite of potash is used to remove colour
that has gone wrong.

The process, as in transparent water-colour, fresco, and water-
g^s painting, is from light to dark. The tones are all pale at
the beginning, every glaze that is added darkens them, and
the strongest darks are reserved for the end of the work. The
principle of superposition is much acted upon ; I mean that the
first colour laid is often very different from what the final colour
is intended to be.

The result is technically just like woven tapestry, but artis-
tically it is greatly superior, because it has the freedom and
energy of original painting as well as the exact colouring which
the artist himself desired. His drawing retains all the accents
he put into it, just as he intended, without the omission of
those not noticed by the weaver or the exaggeration of those
which attract a workman's attention.

The closeness of the technical resemblance to woven tapestry
is proved by the new way of mending old woven works. All
the bad parts are cut out, and then a new whUe tapestry is
selected exactiy of the same texture and with the same number
of threads to the square inch. This white tapestry is cut into
pieces which exactly fill up ever^ Y^atos, ^xA \!oft?5fc ^xe inserted

Painting on Tapestry. 391

like white wood in marquderie. The tapestry being now thor-
oughly repaired so far as material is concerned, it is stretched
on a wooden frame and handed over to a painter, who first
continues the drawing of all the forms across the white spaces,
joining all the interrupted lines, and then by repeated appUca-
tions of transparent colour with the brush so dyes all the white
tapestry that it becomes indistinguishable from the old. As
woven and painted tapestry are close together in works so re-
stored there cannot be a severer test.

Since this kind of painting is entirely in transparent colour
it can never present anything like the solidity of oil, so that a
dead oil-painting on coarse canvas may be preferred when
a massive appearance is desired, but painted tapestry has an
incomparably more comfortable appearance, and is therefore
much better adapted for the decoration of rooms which are to
be inhabited, especially in northern climates. The painting on
the tapestry does not diminish its softness or suppleness, it sim-
ply dyes the threads of different colours.

It is hardly necessary to observe that painted tapestry allows
all the dignity of composition which may be given to fresco or
any other form of graphic art. It also admits great variety and
beauty of colouring, but the artist has not the resource of variety
in surface and texture, because the surface and texture are
always those of the tapestry itself. Neither has he the advan-
tage of great depth and transparence in shade as in oil-painting.
On the other hand, his work is quite free from the defect of
shining, so that it can be seen from any point of view.

Some idea of the value of this kind of art may be got from
the reflection that if Raphael had painted his cartoons on the
tapestry himself the works would have preserved all the gran-
deur of composition and nobility of style which the drawings
now possess, with the advantage of a richer material. Again,
since tapestry is easily removed, there are better chances for its
preservation than for the keeping of any work ou 'j\as.\s.^, ^S.
Lionardo's ' Last Supper ' had beeo ipa-mlei otv 'w^e^:s:^ ^'=
might have have had it safe in England now.

392 The Graphic Arts.

The art is so recently introduced, or rather it has been so
recently brought to technical perfection, diat there are not as
yet very many wc^ks of considerable importance to refer to.
Some English artists have tried the new art, and, I beheve,
successfully, but it so happened that I did not see their exhibi-
tion. The first exhibition of painted tapestry in France was
held in the EcoU des Beaux Arts at Paris, in May, 1881, and
that gave me an opportunity for a close examination of techni-
cal results obtained by artists of the most different character.*
The two most important classes of work might be called the
barbarian and the aesthetic. The barbarian, admirably suited
for decorating the country-houses of the nobility, consisted of
hunting scenes, with dogs, horses, and wild boars ; the aesthetic,
intended for persons of some artistic culture, represented ideal
figures. Besides these two classes there was a third, bearing
reference to literature, and a fourth, illustrating religious subjects,
but these tapestries were not numerous. Almost all had orna-
mental borders, designed by the painters themselves, and gen-
erally with clever and tasteful invention; indeed, the borders
had great decorative interest of their own.

What struck me most in the barbarian class of subjects — the
hunting scenes by MM. Princeteau and De Penne — was the
great degree of animation which existed, not only in the crea-
tures represented, but also in the workmanship. It was quite
evident that the material had not been, in any way, an impedi-
ment to mind or hand. The tapestries were just as lively in
execution as water-colour sketches on paper, and yet they were
of large dimensions. A boar-hunt on rocky ground, by De
Penne, measured twenty-three feet by eleven, whilst the Sandier
au Ferme, by M. Princeteau, was nineteen feet high, including
the border. It would be impossible to find a more appropriate
decoration for the hall of some great hunting chateau. The

* The first attempt in this direction was made in 1865 by M. Guichard,
founder of P Union Centrale. The idea was afterwards taken up by M.
L^torey, who got well-known artists to work it out.

Painting on Tapestry. 393

scheme of colour, more vigorous than refined, was cairied out
quite consistently, betraying neither error nor effort ; indeed,
throughout the exhibition the colouring was much less offensive
by crudity than in the Salon of the same year, which seems to
imply that tapestry has a softening effect upon the transparent
colours employed. In some of the tapestries the colour at-
tempted was of a much more delicate order than that employed
by M. Princeteau. For example, M. Hippolyte Dubois had a
figure, entitled ' Coquetterle,' in a pink drapery on a pale gold-
coloured background, with grey and darker yellow, inclining to
brown, in the border ; and a rehgious triptych, by J. Meynier,
was all kept purposely in pale tones with hard, clear, delicately
drawn outlines and chocolate-coloured borders with very deUcate
decorative leaf-drawing upon them. The subjects of this trip-
tych were the Visitation, the Annunciation, and the Flight into
Egypt, treated strictly on the principles of mural painting.
Tapestry of this kind would be quite suitable for the decoration
of churches, and be much less cold in appearance than any
kind of painting upon plaster. By way of contrast, there were
two vulgar but vivid and powerful illustrations of Molifere, by
Mazeroile, oppressively lively for a private house, but not ill-
suited to the foyer or entrance-hall of a theatre. The scheme
of these tapestries included vivacious expression and strong
opposition of colour, with forms intended to be more amusing
dian beautiful. There was a fine serious work by Luminals,
eleven feet high, representing a gentleman of the time of
Louis XIIL riding a powerful grey horse at full trot through
gloomy woodland scenery. This painting was founded upon
hght and dark rather than colour, and the gravity of it was main-
tained by the serious, almost stem, expression of the face.

Besides serious art of different kinds, and broad comedy, and
illustrations of sylvan sport, the exhibition included examples of
pretty drawing-room art on a smaller scale and finer materials,
a kind of art more suitable to feminine thaji to masculine taste,
but which may often display great knowledge of form and the

394 ^^ Graphic Arts.

most consummate skill in composition^ as well as the most
refined elegance of fancy.

Only one point of importance remains to be noticed. I
observed that a very few artists, not content with the effects of
the mere painting, heightened them at last by brilliant touches
of light or colour in embroidered silk, 'fhis destroyed both
the sobriety and the harmony of the works where it was applied,
and was really a degradation of the art, as gilding is in an oil-
picture.

The best method of painting on tapestry is that in liquid
colours which I have described, but taf)estries, or at least un-
primed canvases, have been painted so as to show the texture
of the cloth, and preserve a dead surface, by several other
processes.

It can be done in pure tempera, used thinly, and on cloth
entirely unprepared by any coating of gesso, but this process is
not to be recommended.

It can be done on a sized cloth with ordinary oil colours and
a solution of white wax in turpentine for a medium, but the
colours and wax have to be used in great moderation, and they
^ not look transparent, nor have they the quality of dyes.
This is more a severe kind of decorative painting than an imita-
tion of tapestry.

Oil colours used as glazes, with turpentine only for a diluent,
on canvas or tapestry slightly sized, may give fairly good results.
I learn also, from M. J. Godon*s treatise on tapestry painting,
that some artists have employed the true method with liquid
colours and then dragged or dry-touched upon the tapestry
with thick oil colour, catching the tops of the threads, just as
painters often do on oil-pictures. This mixed method is objec-
tionable, because it abandons the true principle of the art,
which is that of a stain or dye drunk up by the threads of tap-
estry, and simply colouring them without any perceptible addi-
tion to their substance or alteration of their nature.
' If this book should happen to fall into the hands of any

Painting on Tapestry. 395

reader having influence in matters concerning our public build-
ings, I would suggest to him that perhaps painted tapestry might
be one of the most suitable forms of decoration for a public
building in England. It would not be expensive, unless the
artists charged exorbitantly for their time ; and if the painting
when executed and hung turned out to be a disappointment, it
might easily be removed and replaced by another, which is not
the case with any iund of wall painting. It is perfectly suitable
for the decoration of large spaces, and though it has not the
brilliance of fresco, it may be equivalent to it in nobility of
style. It can be seen, like fresca, from any point of view and
in any light of sufficient intensity to show the colour. I have
already alluded to one quality in which it is greatly superior to
fresco, and that is the appearance of comfort which it gives.
Nothing so effectually as tapestry takes away the air of chilliness
from a large room, as oiu: ancestors well knew when they em-
ployed it in the rooms they lived in. In winter, that is to say,
during about five months of our year, this quahty would greatly
enhance the pleasantness of an Enghsh public building. Lastly,
as to dtuation, there is every reason to suppose that painted
tapestry, if the artist has employed safe colours, will last for
many generations, certainly as long as any other kind of tap-
estry, and at the end of its time posterity might replace it.
Whilst writing these lines I have been thinking of a certain
place in which, as it seems to me, painted tapestry would be
most appropriate, and that is St. Stephen's Hall at Westminster,
a hall surrounded with large panels, now vacant, but once in-
tended for frescoes. These panels would be the very places
for a set of painted tapestries illustrating the history of England.
They would have just the same historical interest as any other
kind of painting, and give a habitable appearance to the place,
which would go far to counteract the chiUing effect of the white
statues. Even in Westminster Hall a line of large tapestries
would not be out of place, though as the light is not very strong
there they would have to be painted in rather a high key, and

396 The Graphic Aris.

veiy decided^ on the priiicq>}e of clear and distinct mund
decoration.

Comparison of Painted Tapestry with Nature. — In oil-
painting otL coarse canvas the texture of the canvas is only
shown so far as it may be useful to the effect, as it can easily
be hidden, when required, by a certain thickness of impasto,
but the texture of tapestry is equally visible everjrwhere, and
explains itself as a woven fabric, so that illusion is hardly pos-
sible. Another illusion-destroyer is the way in which tapestries
are usually hung by simple suspension from their upper edge,
without being stretched tightly on a frame, so that the edges of
the material are seen, and if there are any Httle curves in them,
or any creases or bulges on the tapestry itself, the material is
before us as a tangible object, like a carpet in a shop-window,
and not at all as an opening through which we behold figures
or scenery. Again, the custom of painting borders round tap-
estry, which is an excellent custom from the decorative point
of view, and one that ought to be maintained, is very injurious
to the effect of illusion, because the border, though there may
be relief in it, is always a flat thing taken as a whole, without
perspective, and enclosed by rigid lines, yet we see that it is
part of the tapestry itself, and not a frame, so that we under-
stand the rest of the tapestry to be fiat also.

Some of these objections disappear when tapestry is nailed
to a stretching frame and sunk in a panel, the border being
replaced by the mouldings of architecture or of wood-work.
The portraits in the Galerie dApollon at the Louvre, which
were woven at the Gobelins, produce an effect which is almost
illusory. Strangers alwajrs take them for paintings, and even
as paintings they have a more than ordinary resemblance to the
popular conception of nature, because they are very animated
and in very strong relief If this can be done in woven tap-
estry, in spite of all the difficulties of the loom, it can be done
still more powerfully by a painter. If such an effect is desired

Painting on Tapestry. 397

the tapestry must always be hung high enough, or in a place
sufficiently inaccessible for the texture of the cloth to be in-
visible.

Whilst noticing these qualities for the degree of importance
which may belong to them, I am still firmly persuaded that for
a decorative art, such as this, any illusory kind of resemblance
to nature is undesirable. If we look upon painted tapestry as
a kind of mural decoration it is not a disadvantage, but the
contrary, that the true nature of the stuff should be clearly seen,
so that the spectator may at once perceive that the room is
hung with tapestry, after which he may proceed to admire the
beauty of the design. It is not desirable, either, that the imita-
tion of nature should be carried so far in minute fidelity as
painted tapestry allows, for it would be easy by transferring a
skill acquired in other kinds of painting to this — it would be
easy for a skilful student of objects to give thenl a degree of
reUef and reality which would put an end to the reserve and
sobriety of decorative art Although tapestry painting can never
have all the reality of oil-painting on canvas it can have more
than enough for its own purposes, and it is always wiser to keep
within the realising power of a graphic art than to make use of
it to the utmost

398 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WOOD-ENGRAVING.

OF all the graphic arts wood-engraving is the most exten-
sively spread abroad throughout the world, yet at the
same time it is less understood than some arts which are much
more rarely seen, and its practitioners, by a strange fatality,
generally spend the greater part of their time in endeavouring,
at the cost of the most tedious labour, to convey a false con-
ception of the nature of their own work.

What is most lamentable in this condition of things is that, if
wood-engraving were followed according to the laws of its own
nature, instead of being followed in direct opposition to them,
it would be at the same time a higher art intellectually, an
easier, less laborious art, and also a much more beautiful art
than it generally is at present.

Suppose that you have to write a letter. You take a sheet of
white or toned paper and dip your pen in black ink. You then
write away rapidly and your pen leaves the black fluid wherever
it has passed in the shape of free lines. What you are really
doing all the time is sketching, though you do not think of it
under that name. You are sketching the forms of letters, hur-
riedly and inaccurately, perhaps, but still so that the intended
forms are perfectly recognisable by anybody who can read that
kind of writing. This pen process is one of the important
forms of graphic art, as we have seen in one of the earlier chap-
ters of this volume, and it is quite an artist's process — by which
I mean that it expresses form without unnecessary mechanical

Wood-Engraving. 399

toil, for the essence of the liberal arts is that they do not sub-
ject mental expression to any manual slavery which can possi-
bly be avoided.

Having, as a writer, enjoyed the freedom of an artist, you
shall now, at least in imagination, realise sometiiing of the slav-
ery of an ordinary wood-engraver. Suppose that, under penalty
of starvation, you were compelled to take a fine-pointed brush
charged with vermihon and to fill up all the white spaces on
your paper so as not to encroach in the least on any of the
black lines, and that the filling up should be done with such
perfect neatness that when it was accomplished your letter
should look just as if it had been written in black ink on red
paper. That is the work that the ordinary wood-engraver has to
do, yet with this difference — that handwriting does not contain
so many troublesome little interstices as the crossed Unes of a
delicate pen-drawing upon wood.

I need not point out that the tilling up with vermilion would
not be an inteUectual occupation, nor one calculated to advance
the practiser of it on the road to high artistic achievement of
any kind. After ten years of such work a man would fill up
little spaces of various shapes very rapidly, but he would not
think more clearly for the discipline, nor be more keenly sensi-
tive to the beauties of art or nature.

The plague of the wood-engraver is the draughtsman's habit
of crossing lines, because, when the cut is to give, in the print-
ing, the effect of crossed black lines, all the httle lozenges be-
tween them have to be cut out with a burin, for it is the wood
that is left untouched, and that alone, which prints. Now, sup-
pose that the draughtsman has gone so far contrary to the true
nature of the wood-engraver's art as to insert a dot in each of
the white lozenges, as steel engravera do, then the task is still
more wearisome, for the engraver may not even take out his
lozenge clearly, but must respect the dot in the middle of it,
and cut carefiilly round that. In Jackson's History of Wood
Engraving, there is a part of Harvey's woodcut fi-om Haydon's

400 The Graphic Arts.

Dentatus showing a vigorous leg, seen from behind, with a fly-
ing drapery above it. The leg is shaded in cross-hatching, with
dots in the lozenges. There are not dots in all of the lozenges,
but in the drapery above there is hardly a single interstice with-
out its own separate bit of labour — a dot in some, or thin line in
others. Work of this kind is gready admired \yf those who look
upon wood-engraving as a sort of rival to intaglio engraving on
its own ground, but it is labour entirely thrown away, and is
only interesting as an example of an art set to do something
contrary to its nature, and overcoming the diflficulty, like a horse
going up stairs. My reason for saying that such labotu: is thrown
away is, that so far as artistic results are concerned (these being
the expression of thought, knowledge, and imagination), there
is not the slightest necessity for cross-hatching at all, because
every idea that an artist desires to express can be perfecUy ex-
pressed without it. The proof that very beautiful work can be
done without cross-hatching is, that when a wood-engraver, even
a modem one, is encouraged to work in his own way, according
to the true spirit of his art, he discards hatching as a released
prisoner throws down his fetters, except hatching in white lines,
which is as easy for him as black hatching for a pen draughts-
man. Our commissions to M. Pannemaker, one of the two or
three finest wood-engravers in Europ)e, and to Mr. Linton, who
occupies a similar position in America, were simply to engrave
according to the true spirit of the art, without any deference to
popular requirements ; and if the reader will turn to their en-
gravings in this volume, he will find that the lines made by their
burins are not interrupted by conventional obstacles, but only
by things which have to be represented, such as the darkness of
eyes and hair. The elements of a wood-engraving by Panne-
maker are long lines, often running very nearly parallel and ex-
quisitely modulated, so as to express subtie swellings of form,
rather broad spaces of white and black, and little white dots to
relieve the too great monotony of a black. Because woodcuts
are cheaply printed^ and thereby largely disseminated in the

Wood-Etigraviiig. 401

illustrated newspapers, nobody seems to know or care anything
about them, and the great wood-engravers of the present day
whose names, as mere signatures, are in every house, are only
known to the publishers who employ them and to a few, a very
few, critics who take an interest in all the graphic arts. There
was a rather large wood-engraving, by Stfephane Pannemakcr, in
the Salon of 1881, simply entitled ' Jeune Fille,' from a picture
by Jacquet, a splendid piece of straightforward and learned
burin work on wood, with fine modeiling, rich darks, and a soft-
ness quite recalling the quality of the original. An impression
of that engraving, very carefully printed, would deserve a place
on the walls of the most fastidious critic ; but who will value
a print which has been dbseminated through all the cafSs of
France in Pi/lustration i Mr. Linton practises the white line
with precisely the same thoughtful independence that the old
masters enjoyed when they made free studies in white brush-
line on grey paper. ' Whether good or bad,' he says in his little
book on Wood-engraving, ' failing or succeeding, the graver-
work in my own cuts is drawn with intention and design, it 13
white-lme work, as all wood-engraving, except facsimile, must
be.' Criticising an engraving by another man, he says : ' The
■white lines here are not drawn. The practised engraver knew
that certain closeness of line or largeness of wood would pro-
duce certain colour, and availed himself of that knowledge, but
for the meaning of each particular Une he was without an artist's
care, so that he has only filled his spaces with cut or left lines,
fairly keeping the general effect of the draughtsman, but losing
the form and meaning in which the value of the drawing, what
may be more properly called the drawing, consisted." Here
we have Mr. Linton's most essential doctrine, which is, that not
only should a woodcut be done in white line, but that there
should be a certain thoughtful vivacity in the line which ought
to express the engraver's intelligent care. The reader will per-
ceive that Mr. Linton has acted upon his own doctrine in his
engraving from Titian, which is just as truly etigraviig, in tha

402 The Graphic Arts.

strict artistic sense^ as burin work on steel. It is not simply
wood-cutting, not simply the cutting out of bits of wood, it is
drawing with the burin on a wood-block^ an incomparably higher
art.

Wood-engraving may be conveniently divided into four
classes, as follows. The reader will find that they include the
whole field of the art : —

1. That which is done for its own qualities as an independent
kind of engraving.

2. That which is done to give an exact facsknile of a draw-
ing.

3. That which interprets shades by lines.

4. That which is done to imitate the qualities of some other
kind of art.

All have a certain value, but the quality of the work is so dif-
ferent in the four that it is impossible to speak of all at the same
time. They have nothing in common except this, that in all
of them the black is left and the white cut away, and that, at
least in modem work, the same tools and materials are employed,
namely, burins of different degrees of acuteness and boxwood
cut across the grain.

I. Of woodcut done for its own qualities as an independent
kind of Engraving, — We have seen already that when the buriii
cuts a line on wood the line prints white, whereas the line in all
kinds of intaglio engraving prints black. Hence it follows that
the white line is the natural expression of the wood-engraver,
and the perfection of his art is to use it as a man who draws in-
telligently with the burin, and not as a mere labourer who digs
what he is told to dig.

Besides the white line the wood-engraver has two other very
valuable means of expression at his command, the white space
and the black space. The white space is easily and rapidly ob-
tained anywhere by cutting away the wood. The black space
is obtained still more easily by leaving the wood just as the
planer left it. The Mi value oi 'wVii^ ^xA XJas^ ^^^aca& onbf

Wood-Engraving. 403

becomes intelligible to us when we have studied the subject
Until we have gone rather deeply into art matters we fancy that
an empty white space in a drawing is, mere vacancy, and that it
has no active effect. This is a great mistake. Mere blankness
influences the spectator in various different ways. It makes the
rest of the work look stronger and more interesting, it gives
the notion of light and of serene space. Rembrandt very fre-
quendy used white spaces in his etchings with settled artistic
intention. The proof that they give strength to the rest of the
work may be got from an experiment familiar to all etchers of
landscape. You etch a landscape and leave your sky a blank,
intending to add a sky after taking your first proof. So long
as your sky is mere white paper the landscape looks vigorous
enough, but no sooner have you etched a sky with some force
and meaning in it, than, lo 1 all your landscape is suddenly en-
feebled, and has to be worked upon and darkened to restore its
lost Strength. And yet there was no positive loss of strength,
the loss was merely relative, but relativity pervades everything
in art. Now, just as you may weaken a part of your drawing
or engraving by darkening some other part, so you can give
strength and interest by setting a blank space elsewhere in the
same work, and it is in this sense that white spaces are active.
I remember making a drawing in my youth for an eminent
wood-engraver, and when he had finished his task we were both
dismayed by the dull, grey look of the performance, but we
tried a white space by losing the lightest greys In white, and this
effected a cure. This loss of light greys in white is a perfecdy
legitimate method of interpreting nature. We find it continu-
ally in the drawings of the great masters, who very seldom at-
tempted to give all the shades, but contented themselves with
indicating the most important. It may be taken, then, as a
setded principle that a wood-engraver may represent pale greys
by white if he chooses, and that if he makes this sacrifice the
rest of his work will appear all the more powerfM.V fo^ \v, '^c
now come to another matter of especiai \m^t\a.tvc£ v». ■«aci^

404 The Graphic Arts.

engraving, because it is a strong point of the art, I mean the
flat black in which several different dark shades may all be lost
and merged as the light ^ys were in white. Both are, in feet,
equally legitimate, and both are exceedingly easy tp the en-
graver, for if he has only to cut away wood ronghly and boldly
to get pure white he has but to leave it as it is to get a flat
black of a very fine quality indeed. Like the white, the flat
black has a great relative power, it gives delicacy to the darker
greys, and by its own emptiness it gives interest to the slightest
toucl\es of the burin that come near it. Of course we all know
that there are no flat blacks in nature, except in the mouths of
caverns, but art is full of sacrifices, and this is one of them.

The white line, the white space, and the flat black, are the
principal means of expression at the disposal of the wood-
engraver who tries for the qualities of his own art ; and if you
examine what has been done you will And that these three
elements are more or less characteristic of all wood-engraving
which is valued for itself hy collectors, and not for its repre-
sentation of painting or drawing. Here we must keep very
closely to om: distinction between the four classes of woodcut
mentioned above. We must remember what a very humble
position wood-engraving has generally occupied amongst the
fine arts, and that in its early days the practitioners of it had no
higher ambition than that of spreading a very cheap kind of art
amongst the people. The plain truth is that the early wood-
engravers were simply workmen who either interpreted designs
in a white line, which was far from being an adequate interpre-
tation of nature, or else made rude facsimiles of coarse drawings
in black lines. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence in very
early work that almost from the beginning of the art the de-
signers of woodcuts felt the value of white spaces and flat blacks.
The white spaces may have come at first without settled inten-
tion, as it was too difficult and laborious for inexperienced men
to work out a block in greys, but the flat blacks were unques-
tionably intentional, being put in their places with the utmost

Wood-Engraving, 405

decisioHj and sometimes at once relieved and adorned by a deli-
cate ornament in white. In the famous St. Christopher wood-
cut, long believed to be the oldest extant, the doors of the
houses are in flat black, and one of the trees was first cut out
in black silhouette, while leaves being afterwards cut in that. In
the old ' Annunciation,' nearly of the same date, a space of flat
black against the wall of the chamber stands for the dark ground
of some tapestry or painted decoration which is delicately cut
out upon it in white. Down to a quite recent date in Japan
and China it was the custom to seize upon every decidedly
black thing, such as a black velvet cap, or a shoe, and make a
patch of pure printing ink of it in the impression, a technical
device by no means rare in old European wood-engraving.

It is believed that the white dot was introduced to relieve flat
blacks about the middle of the fifteenth century, and soon after-
wards it came to be extensively used in flat backgrounds which
gave relief to figures. This may possibly have been suggested
by wood-carving, for it was the custom in carving bas-reliefs in
oak to roughen the background with little holes either bored or
hammered ; but an early French engraver, Bernard Mitnet, had
executed several cuts enrireiy in white lines and white dots. I
have observed elsewhere that this white dot has been revived
in our own day with excellent effect in astronomical wood-
engraving. It gives us the constellations and nebuke on a
perfectly black ground, and on the whole, notwithstanding the
extreme simplicity of the means employed, the result is nearer
to the truth of nature than it could be in any other kind of
engraving. TTie white dot is stil! employed by modem artistic
wood-engravers, and like the white line is most used by those
who cultivate the art on its own account, but it is not a means
of executive expression, as the line is, the value of it is merely
to diminish the too regular strength of blacks in very large
spaces.*

" I remember one instance !n which the white dots (not round, how-
ever] have 3 meaning, and that is where Bewick has made them t«:s^ok^

406 The Graphic Arts.

It is generally admitted, in theory, that Bewick was the most
perfect representative of wood-engraving after the revival of the
art ; but modem wood-engravers have seldom been faithful to
his principles. All the effect of his work was dependent upon
his fidelity to the three great means of interpreting nature which
woodcut places at our disposal — the white line, the white
space, and the flat black. It is impossible to speak too highly
of the soundness of his method, wliich was perfectly in accord-
ance with the genius of the art he practised ; but the zeal of
his admirers has assigned him too high a rank as an artist, prob-
ably because he was a thoughtful and intelligent man, who often
put into his work a great deal of invention and observation be-
sides an uncommon degree of sympathy with human beings and
animals. They rank him too high, because he never saw things
in their true relation to each other, because he had no concep-
tion of visual effect ; he could take a bird or a fish and copy
its feathers or its scales and give quite accurately the beautiful
curves of its outline, but if he had to make a group and set it
in a landscape he had no other notion of managing such a piece
of work than simply doing one thing after another as if each
had been alone. When he has to draw a branch in the fore-
ground he does first one leaf and then its neighbour, and so on,
so that you can count them. There are three twigs in the left-
hand comer of a cut before me ; the biggest has twenty-two
leaves, the second nine, the smallest six. In the mined cottage
behind the ewe and the lamb you can count the stones — there
are twenty-two on the side that is in light. His trees are often
bunches of leaves on branches ; there are nineteen such bunches
on the principal tree in the vignette of the fisherman near the
waterfall. His rocks are like steps going up to a house, or some-
times like coal strata in a mine. His management of tones
showed little artistic craft White, black, and a very few greys,

bees in the cut of the * Ass and the Bee-hives.' There is a perfectly black
space behind the hives which the bees serve to lighten so as to prevent
heaviness.

Wood-Engraving. 407

were the means at his command, but he sometimes put his
blacks too much in the distance, as in the three horses galloping
down a field in a hunt with a countryman shouting ; and he
had so little the art of managing greys that when he tried grey
upon grey, as in the bull ridden by a boy, and the two pigs held
with strings by a rustic, the animals are at first sight indistin-
guishable from the background. Many of the woodcuts of
Bewick betray those faults of tonic arrangement, and those sole-
cisms in composition, which are perfectly familiar to artists as
the common marks of amateiirship ; yet in spite of these defi-
ciencies, which I mention only for the sake of truth, and not
in a hostile spirit, Bewick was one of the most genuine wood-
engravers who ever Uved, and his work is always a model of
directness and honesty of method. Vou never find Bewick
trying to make you believe that his woodcuts are steei engrav-
ings, nor do they in the least resemble pen-drawings, they are
as plainly woodcuts as their author was a north-country English-
man, unimbued with the Hellenic or the Florentine spirit ; and
this is the reason why, with all their innocent errors, they are so
profitable as a study when we desire to know the true nature
of wood -engraving. The clever American engravers of the pres-
ent day can beat Bewick hollow in variety of resource, and es-
pecially in the management of tones, but we learn more about
the foundation of the art from his frank and simple-minded
genius.

When he had settled about the story of his litde vignette, for
every vignette had its own little tale to tell, Bewick seems to
have determined where he would put his flat blacks and clear
out his spaces of white, He found an excuse for fiat blacks in
all sorts of shadowy holes and comers, such as the dark hollows
in foliage, the cavernous places in rocks, and even in the broken
turf and sod on a rough foreground. In his birds a few dark
feathers together would answer the purpose to some extent, but
the boughs or rocks they perched upon afforded even better
opportunities, or the grass near them might be supposed. **!

'408 The Graphic Arts.

have very dark places against which the light blades would cut
prettily, and be easy to engrave. He generally repeated the
flat black three or four times in the same cut, each time in
diminution, so that it might not be too conspicuous. As to
his whites, he managed them by bringing the white sky down
into the subject through the openings of trees, and by giving
broad white lights on grass in sunshine, on the bodies of ani-
mals, and on the clothes worn by his figures. Although there
are many instances of apparently black lines in the woodcuts
of Bewick, I believe it will always be found that from the work-
man's point of view they were not really lines, but spaces in-
cluded between white lines made with the burin, upon which
his own attention was directed. Whenever he desired to make
a space grey he lightened the black with white lines, but what
he especially delighted in was the pleasure of cutting out pretty
things in white on black, such as plants and feathers. In this
he showed a good deal of the middle-age decorative spirit.

Bewick has been placed, since his death, in a false position
by being classed amongst great artists, when in fact he was a
naturalist and humourist, in whom the artistic faculty was a sub-
servient gift, and never developed by education. * I ought dis-
tinctly to state,' he says in his own Memoirs, * that, at that time,
it never entered into my head that it was a branch of art that
would stand pre-eminent for utility, or that it could ever in the
least compete with engraving on copper. I ought also to ob-
serve that no vain notions of my arriving at any eminence ever
passed through my mind, and that the sole stimulant with me
was the pleasure I derived from imitating natural objects (and
I had no other patterns to go by*) and the opportimity it
afforded me of making and drawing my designs on the wood,
as the only way I had in my power of giving vent to a strong
propensity to gratify my feelings in this way.'

The methods adopted by Bewick in execution were the re-

* Observe here both the i\atuTa.Ust's love for natural objects and the
absence of artistic example and educa^oiu

m^

Wood-Engraving. 409

9w!t of thoughtful choice. At one tiine he had felt some curi-
osity about cross-hatching, and found that he could produce it
at a small cost of labour by engraving his subject on two blocks
with the lines going in opposite directions. The two blocks
being then printed on the same piece of paper, gave a proof
in which the cross-hatching was very perfect, but Bewick's in-
terest in the subject went no farther than this experiment. His
natural good sense made him perceive that cross-hatching was
not necessary when exactly the same degree of dark might
be got quite surely without it. Here are his views about this
important technical matter, expressed quite plainly in his own
words ; —

'When 1 had accomplished this, and satistied myself that the
process was botli simple and perfect, as to obcaming the object I so
much wanted, my curiosity on this score ceased, and 1 tben con-
cluded that In this way the cross- batching might be set aside as a
thing of no use at all. The artists, indeed, of the present day have
brought it to such a pitch of perfection that I do not know that it
can be carried any further, and in ihis they have also been so mar-
vellously aided by the improved methods now used in priming their
cuts, that one would be led to conclude that this department has
also attained to perfection ; and, had this not been the case, the
masterly execution of woodcuts, either by crossed lines, or other-
wise, would have continued to be beheld with disgust or contempt.
/ have long bren of opinion that the cross-hatching of -woodcuts,
for book-work, is a ivaste of time, as every desired effect can be
much easier obtained by plain parallel lints. The other way is
not the legitimate object nf ■wood-en^aving. Instead of imitating
the manner of copper etchings, at a great coat of labour and lime,
on the wood, such drawings might have been as soon etched on
the copper at once ; and, where a large impression of any publica-
tion was not required, the copper-plate would have cost less, and
lasted long enough for the purpose intended. 1 never could dis-
cover any additional beauty or colour that the crossed strokes gave
to the impression, beyond the effect produced by plain parallel
very apparent when to a certainty the. ■^'.iwv ^OT'vaR-*.

the wood will print as black aa ink atvd\jaa& c^n wi-!iLt\t,^"\*a-

410 Tfie Graphic Arts*

ont any further labour at all ; and it may easily be seen that the
thinnest strokes cut upon the plain surface will throw some light
on the subject or design ; and, if these strokes are made wider and
deeper, it will receive more light ; and if these strokes, again, are
made still wider, or of equal thickness to the black lines, the colour
these produce will be a grey ; and, the more the white strokes are
thickened, the nearer will they, in their varied shadings, approach
to white, and, if quite taken away, then a perfect white is obtained.
The methods I have pursued appear to me to be the simple and
easy perfection of wood-engraving for book printing, and, no doubt,
will appear better or worse, according to the ability of the artist
who executes them.'

George Manson, a Scottish artist of talent, perhaps of genius,
^o unfortunately died early and left rich promises but partially
fulfilled, was apprenticed as a wood-engraver in his youth to
Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh. Some examples of his wood-
cuts are given at the end of his biography, and they at once at-
tracted my attention as the work of an artist who had been trying
to work in the true spirit of his art. His biographer says quite
truly : ' Manson*s style of engraving was singularly direct and
artistic ; it aimed to give to each line the utmost value and
meaning, and dealt little in the delicate and laborious cross-
hatching so characteristic of modem woodcuts.* His master,
Mr. Pairman, wrote about him as follows : —

* George had very strong ideas as to the proper province of the
art of wood- engraving. He held that it had advantages in the way
of simplicity in the production of effect of light and shade, which
were wilfully thrown away when any attempt was made to imitate
the execution of a steel engraving, as is too often the case. He
made no effort to show meretricious skill in mere mechanical dex-
terity, but followed Bewick, whom he greatly admired, in producing
the required effect by the simplest possible means, and in taking
full advantage of the power of black, which the surface of a wood-
block gives, by workingy>v7w the solid hlack into the whiter instead
of from the white into grey by means of a multiplicity of lines.'

Wood-E»graving. ^i i

In Manson's time there was a Society of Engravers on Wood
in Edinburgh, and in 1870 they offered a prize to the ap-
prentices in their profession, Maason was one of the candi-
dates, but we learn that he worked quite differently from the
rest.

* The competitors all engraved the same landscape subject, the
drawings on the block, which were provided for them, being finished
with tlie pencil point in the usnal way to indicate texture, foliage,
&c. Manson, unlike the others, entirely ignored these pencilhngs,
and, following his own ideas, produced the effect of the drawing by
means of simple hues, all running in one direction across the block,
the light and shade being preserved by the varying breadth of the
hnes. The engraving was executed with such originahty and fine
sense of atmosphere that Mr. W. L. Thomas of London, who was
the judge — while unable to award the first prize for anything so
unlike the conventional method of engraving — sent Manson a
special prize from himself, to mark liis " admiration of the en-
graver's artistic feeling in lantlscape." '

This little landscape is before me as I write. It is a vignette
about four inches long by an inch and a quarter high, and it
represents a quiet river scene with fields gently sloping down
to the water's edge. The sun is setting behind a group of trees,
and there is just one habitation, a cottage or small farmhouse
in the middle distance. It is a very poetical little subject, as
poetical as a stanza from Gray's Elegy, but all the poetry would
have been taken away from it by a prosaic engraver. The way
that Manson dealt with it was this. The sun, not yet below the
horizon, and the clouds about it, suppUed the white spaces that
he required, and so did their reflections in the water. The river
bank under the sun and the darkest trees near it supplied the
flat blacks, the greys being got everywhere by white lines run-
ning almost horizontally, though not too formally so, being
varied by the direction of the nearest field. There is no such
thing as a hard outline an)rwhere in this delightful little work,
but the whole scene is expressed by masses of black, white, and

412 The Graphic Arts.

grey, with tender soft edges like the softness of a natural scene
at eventide. The value of a small touch of white in wood-
engraving of this genuine kind may be understood by the farthest
gleams on the river which are nothing but tliin sharp touches of
the burin under its darkest shore.

This little vignette, as we have seen, was engraved on another
person's drawing, but in the most independent manner. Often,
however, Manson would engrave little subjects of his own choice
or invention, and so sincere was the interest he took in his art,
so deep his respect for it, that he would do nothing whatever
carelessly, but went to the living model even for his smallest
vignettes, and to nature for his backgrounds. Had he been
devoted entirely to wood-engraving there would have been a
successor to Bewick, inferior, probably, in humorous or pathetic
invention, but working in the same technical spirit and with more
artistic culture. Painting naturally attracted him, and he fol-
lowed it with admirable industry till he was taken away from all
our terrestrial occupations.

It would be a great pleasure to see artist wood-engravers
working out their own designs in perfect freedom from all false
methods, but wood-engraving .requires rather more patience of
temper than original artists often possess, so that they are likely
to prefer etching or one of those forms of drawing which admit
of photographic reproduction. Nobody, however skilful, can
ever sketch with a burin, the utmost liberty he can ever hope for
is to draw rather freely, but still slowly, and in woodcut every
line the burin makes must be a white line. Mr. Linton's wood-
cut after Titian, in this volume, is the freest piece of wood-
engraving that I have ever seen, and still, although the burin
was allowed to exercise itself without any restriction outside of
the inherent difficulties of the work, it is not likely that Mr.
Linton really sketched as Rembrandt did on copper. You may
sketch on wood, but not in wood. Hence, if original artists
work in wood at all they must be men of quiet temper. I do
not dwdl much on original wood-engraving, having little hope

Wood-Engraving. 413

that it irill ever be much practised, but before quitting this part
of the subject finally I would insist once more upon the duty of
liberating the ordinary wood-engraver from his slavery. When-
ever we employ one we ought to tell him that he is not ex-
pected to do anything whatever in the least degree contrary
to the true genius of his art, that he is not expected to make his
woodcut look as if it had beeo engraved in some other way, and
that he is to adopt, in the frankest manner, the kind of line
«hich will get the right degree of shade and the correct form
most easily to himself. Working in these liappy conditions the
wood-engraver rises to a higher grade in art, his profession
ceases to be a drudgery and becomes a Uberal profession, his
raind wins culture from his work and the work itself b better.

II. — Of Wood- Engraving in Facsimile. — This kind of
engraving is quite distinct both in principle and results from
Ihat which has hitherto occupied us in this chapter. The reader
must understand that when an engraver like Bewick makes a
woodcut, his burin does not follow any line set down for it, but
translates freely into the true language of wood-engraving the
appearance of some natural object or effect. On the contrary,
in facsimile engraving, the wood-cutter does not exercise his
intelligence in the translation of a natural object or a picture
into the language of his own art. Strictly speaking, he can
scarcely be said to exercise any intelligence whatever, except
just so much as may be necessary to cut out a prescribed bit of
boxwood with the necessary exactness. The drawing is made
upon the wood with a pen or the point of a brush, generally by
another person, and al! that the engraver does is just to hollow
all the little areas of wood that are lefl inkless. The reader
may soon find out what the work is like if he will take the
trouble to make a httle experiment. Let him write his signa-
ture freely on a piece of hard wood, and then cut out exactly,
with a sharp penknife, all the parts of the wood tvot con weft. -^^"^
mk. This woufd be engraving of tlie earVve&t Vwvi,'«V\'c^'»"^

414 ^^ Graphic Arts*

done with knives in planks before the refinements of burin work
in boxwood cut across^the grain.

The reader is not to suppose, however, that facsimile wood-
cutting of the best kind is a common commodity. It does not
require intelligence, but it requires a degree of care which few
workmen will ever give. Mr. Linton, in his little book on the
art, published examples of good and bad cutting — a little bit
of sound old work, and another little bit of careless, untidy
work, like that done by the modem * near-enough school.' In
the one the lines are clear and of the intended thickness, in the
other their thickness varies, and where they cross the angles are
not properly cleared out.

Early wood-cutting is nearly all of it either facsimile work or
done as if it were — I mean that either some artist drew ink
lines on the block which were afterwards left in relief by the
cutter, or else the cutter interpreted his subject on the principle
of such lines. The probability is that the lines were generally
drawn. The dominant idea of all facsimile work is as different
as possible from Bewick's. It has nothing to do with white
lines, but gives black ones firmly ever)rwhere; and they are
generally rather thick, I mean in comparison with the fine lines
of a copper-plate engraving, because, being often isolated, they
would be beaten down with the press work if they were very
delicate. For example, here is a cut firom an old book called
* Poliphilo,* ♦ done strictly on the principles of early facsimile

* * Of all the woodcuts executed in Italy within the fifteenth century,
there are none that can bear a comparison for elegance of design with
those contained in an Italian work entitled **' Hypnerotomachia Poli-
phili," a folio without printer's name or place, but certainly printed at
Venice by Aldus in 1499. • • • 1*^^ name of the author was Francis Co-
lonna, who was bom at Venice, and at an early age became a monk of
the order of St. Dominic The true name of this amorous, dreaming
monk, and the fictitious one of the woman with whom he was in love,
are thus expressed by combining, in the order in which they foUow each
other, the initial letters of the several chapters : " Poliam Frater Fran-
ciscus Columna peramavit" * — Jackson and Chatto's History of Wood
Engravingi

Wood- Engraviiig.

work. Please observe how carefully, as a genera] rule, the lines
are kept well clear of each other in this cut, and what a very
considerable thickness is given to all of them. See how strong
are all the markings on the trunks of the palm-trees, and with
what clear, bold simplicity all the principal lines of the Roman
armour in the left-hand corner are mapped out. Notice the
extremely laconic manner in which the form of the li;iard is
expressed, and think how very differently Bewick would have
engraved it. This primitive wood- engraving expresses a great
deal with its simple line : here we have animal and vegetable
fonns carefiilly observed, architecture and armour clearly ex-
plained to us,<and distant land drawn with much truth and a
good understanding of its use in composition, but there is no
delicacy of shade and hardly any linear accent or contrast. It
is the sort of drawing which would very well bear a few washes
with the brush, to separate plane from plane, and in fact it was
often undentood that such eaily woodcuts, which the artists i
had not skill to shade delicately with the burin, were to be not
only shaded afterwards, but even tinted in water-colour.

The strong outline was often accompanied by a little shading
at right angles to itself, to give relief. For example, there is
an old alphabet in the British Museum of large capital letters
composed of figures, a letter to each leaf; and if you look at
an arm or a leg you will find that it is shaded with short lines,
to suggest the idea (rather remotely) of roundness, and that
these short lines are invariably at right angles with the firm out-
line of the limb, luming at the elbow or the knee. Each cut
is fi-amed as if in an open window of a new house before glass
or woodwork had been put into it, and one side and the top are
shaded very firmly in strong lines, all following the perspective
carefully. The printers of these early block-books seem to have
been aware that the strong lines produced by the engravers of
those days looked heavy in black, so they sometimes printed
them in pale brown, or eien yellow, to give them the delicacy
which they lacked. We give a fine example of that class of
art, representing a death-bed, and printed \\V,c vVe atX'jwA.

4i6 The Graphic Arts,

The woodcuts which bear the name of Albert Dtirer are not
to be taken as specimens of his engraving. As it is useless to
say over again what has already been perfectly well said, I quote
Mr. W. B. Scott, one of Diirer's best biographers, on this

subject : —

*The idea, first started by Bartsch, that Diirer never actually
engraved on the wood, but only drew the picture on the block, is
now generally admitted as true. Ottley, however, and others, con-
sider he did engrave occasionally.'

' In the early period of the art the process was materially di£Eer-
ent from that now in use. Now boxwood, cut sectionally, is ex-
clusively used; the tool employed being the burin. In Diirer's
time pear-tree and other woods were used, and in the plank simply ;
a very fine knife was the instrument principally employed. The
thirty-six blocks of the " Little Passion," now in the British Mu-
seum, are cut out of the plank. It will thus be seen that a large
size was an immense advantage, and we need less to wonder at the
dimensions of Diirer's and other early artists' block pictures, those
by Hans Sebald Beham and Burgkmair, for example. The copper
engraving was a miracle of miniature detail in the hands of H. S.
Beham, his wood-engravings gigantic The impressions of Diirer's
Triumphal Arch of Maximilian show the seams of the planks run-
ning from end to end.'

It has been argued, in the * History of Wood Engraving,' that
the fi-equent presence of cross-hatching in the woodcuts attrib-
uted to Dtirer, is presumptive evidence that he only designed
them, for a draughtsman naturally uses cross-hatching, as it is
easy to him though laborious for the cutter. There appears
to be no reason to suppose that Dtirer was unable to find cut-
ters skilfiil enough for the cotDparatively easy and coarse work
he set them. Besides, if we compare DUrer's pen-drawing on
paper with his woodcuts, we find striking points of similarity in
treatment, which goes far to prove that he looked upon wood-
engraving simply as a means of multiplying drawings, and that
he did not see any special quality or virtue in the art itself as
Bewick and young Manson did» An ^iiafc cxiX ^^ \kika * Penitent,*

Wood- Engraving. 4 1 7

given herewith, the reader has a fair example of this ckss of
work. It is boldly and simply arranged in masses of light and
dark, without any attempt at delicate distinctions, and there is
a degree of art, by no means to be despised, in the arrangement
of oppositions, as, for example, that between the light side of
the man's body and the darkest part of the back(,Tound, or the
_ darkly-shaded drapery wliich relieves the foot ; but the drawing
is evidently intended for what DQrer considered a rude kind
of engraving. If the reader is inclined to forget, even for a
moment, that tlie designer of this block was an artist of great
manual refinement, he has only to turn to the Shield witii the
Lion and Cock, reproduced with wonderful fideUty in this
volume, and of which Mr. W. B. Scott says that ' in manipula-
tion with the graver it is one of the most excellent pieces of
work ever done.' Let it be remembered that the same skilful
hand drew this rude design on wood and made those delicate
lines with the burin, his ability to work deiicaieiy being ample
evidence that in drawing for the wood-engraver he conformed
himself to the condition of what was then a very inferior art.

The old facsimile wood-cutting had, in truth, no one point
of superiority over ink-drawing on paper, whilst it was inferior
to it in freedom. You may copy all DUrer's woodcuts with pen
and ink quite accurately, if you have patience, but not one of
Bewick's birds. The merits of Diirer's woodcuts are simply the
merits of the artistic design, the nobility of a figure, the interest
of an expression, the dignity of an altitude ; the engraving is
less than nothing, for if we could have the original drawing
before the knife of the cutter touched it, we should gain by the
exchange. You could not say that of any really precious en-
graving. You could not say that, as a work of art (setting aside
venal value), you would prefer a pen-drawing by Durer to a
good proof of his work in copper. However much we may
admire these old facsimile woodcuts they are nothing in them-
selves, as woodcuts, they are only drawings multi^Vved \w i^ cer-
tain fashion, and tJiaE not a very perfect Sas\aQti, ^o^ -CciE^t '^

41 8 The Graphic Arts.

certainly a loss even if we do not see it — certainly the farm-^
Schneider has not always cut out his whites with absolute and
irreproachable fidelity.

I have already had occasion to remind the reader more than
once that the plan of this work does not include an3rthing like
a history of the graphic arts, which in itself would require
twenty volumes such as this. My references to the past are
simply technical. I often select the work of an old master in
preference to a modem because the old master is more gen-
erally known and also because his work is less complex in its
character. The simplicity of a Diirer woodcut makes it so
easy to analyse that it serves admirably as an elementary exam-
ple of facsimile engraving. From him the student may go to
Holbein for a kind of wood-engraving essentially the same but
superior in delicacy and refinement. Holbein is exactly in the
same position as Diirer with regard to wood-engraving. People
speak of Holbein's cuts as they do of Diirer's, so that an
impression exists that these artists were engravers on wood, an
impression for which there is no historical justification. So
far as work on wood is concerned these artists did not occupy
exactly the same position as George Du Manner, because he
makes his pen-drawings on white paper and they are afterwards
photographed on wood, but they did occupy the same position
as John I-.eech, who drew upon the block itself, and we should
never speak of I^ech as a wood-engraver, we call him a
draughtsman. The work of Leech has been mentioned in this
volume in the chapter on drawing with pen and ink, and if the
reference to Holbein had concerned Holbein's genius as an
artist I should have spoken of his woodcuts in that chapter as
so many ink drawings, which they really were. It is known
that the Holbein Alphabet was engraved by Hans Liitzelburger,
and the ' Dance of Death ' is now believed to be the work of
the same engraver.*

* 'Ce n*esi en effet qu'en 1538 que deux Hbraires allemands, les fr^rea
Melchior et Gaspard Trechse\, pubW^teiA V\->jc(ti, $<mV» Tesoi de Co^o^gic^^

Wood- Engraving. 4 1 9

The cutting was done honestly and simply, and the draughts-
man carefully prepared the wood so that it should not be too
difficult for the cutter. The slate of mind in which Holbein
made a drawing on wood compares very advantageously with
the complete indifference of the modem draughtsman, who
covers his block with lines crossing each other in every direc-
tion and leaves the poor slave of the burin to pick out the
whites as he can. Cross-hatching is so extremely rare in the
Holbein cuts that if there were not reviewers to pounce upon
the one or two exceptional -instances one might say that it never
occurs. Local colour is simply omitted. Shading is not omit-
ted, but it is perfectly arbitrary, arid is used in the most inde-
pendent way for two distinct purposes, expressing modelling
in one part of a cut and privation of light in another, often in
the most incompatible and contradictory maimer. For exam-
ple, in the drawing of Ihe 'Avaricious Man,' where Death is
taking away his money, ihe light comes between the bars of his
prison-like window at an angle indicated by the slanting cast
shadows, but the man himself is shaded simply for modelling
without reference to the direction of the light. This system is
frequent in the cuts which are simply explanatory without fidel-
ity to visual effect. A very striking instance is the subject of
' Death and the Bishop. ' The landscape is in a hilly country,
and the sun is in the cloudless sky above the hills. Rays issue
from the luminary, and as they are all black lines getting nearer
as they approach the centre, like the spokes of a wheel, the

le pelit in-octavo intitule les SimulacAr/: el histariies faces di h Mart,
aulant lUgame! paurtrautes que ariijUicllement imaghties. Dans ce litre,
qui peut sembler aingulier, les mots nc sont pas employes au hasard.
Pout qui connait 1c langage du XVI" si^le, le terme foHrlrakti! sc rap-
porte au r81e du dessinateur ; le mot imaginiii fait au graveur la part qui
lui est due. Cetie remarque ne paraStra pas inutile k ceux qui se sou-
viennenC que, pendant longtemps, lea compositions et la gravure out ^t^
allribu^es au meine artiste L Holbein ; Terudition modeme, unc lecture
plus attentive des documents lui ont donni u.n aaaotit, '^V^ate jm-m-
sthneider Hans Liilzel burger.' — Paul 'M.hNTT..

420 The Graphic Arts.

consequence is that the sky, instead of getting lighter and lighter
towards the sun, becomes darker and darker, whilst the moun-
tain comes in white against it, which not even a snowy Alp
would do in nature, and the bishop's face, which ought to be in
shadow, is much lighter than the sky. It may be asked whether
Holbein did work of this kind in pure Ignorance or whether
he had a plan. I believe the answer to be, simply, that he
looked to the general distribution of light parts and dark parts
over the area of his drawing quite without reference to natural
truth. Considering Holbein's object, the production of a wood-
cut that should tell its story plainly and be about equally clear
everywhere, I have no doubt that he was right, but it is a matter
that can be very easily tested. Any artist who understands
chiaroscuro could paint over a Holbein woodcut a correct ar-
rangement of the same subject in light and shade, and from the
painting so done a clever modem wood-engraver could make a
fresh woodcut. I see the result as if I had it before my eyes.
The improvement would throw the composition out of balance
as a drawing, and would casb into obscurity the parts which
Holbein desired to show most plainly. Modem draughtsmen
on wood ought to bear in mind that the qualities of a Holbein
cut and those of a drawing in correct chiaroscuro are as incom-
patible as those of two different chemical substances. You
might as well try to find something which should have the prop-
erties of sulphur and soda as a kind of art which should give
the incompatible satisfactions of a clear old German woodcut
and a modem rendering of natural light and dark.

It is a great mistake to suppose that facsimile wood-engraving
like that which bears the name of Holbein represents the art at
its best, or even represents it fairly. After all, the Holbein cuts
are only drawings hi grey and white, and they do not make the
most of a wood-block with its possibilities of fine blacks and
other resources afready known to the reader. Their great fame
is due to the inventive mind of the artist, to his skill in giving
animation and character to Vus \\\xk ^i^%. They are justly

Wood-Engraving. 43 1

esteemed for the sound pen work of the designer, and for the
clear and careful cutting done by the engraver, all quite honest
and faithful work so far as it goes, but not by any means Ic
dernier mot of wood -engraving.

A chapter of this book has been given to auxiliary washes.
The reader will find it a great help to the understanding of the
woodcuts designed by Holbein, if he considers them the same
thing in principle as a combination ot line and wash. He will
follow what I call especially the line, that is, the significant,
organic line, which marks all the forms, and then he will find
shades, often diagonal, often in quiet curves, which correspond
to the auxiliary wash in drawing, Holbein would easily learn
this combination from the copper-plate engravers who had prac-
tised it with success both in Germany and Italy. After a com-
plete analysis we find that although this work is done for the
wood-cutter it is done on principles of interpretation already
perfectly farailiar to artists who did not work for the wood-cutter
at all. It is often so in the fine arts, where a familiar principle
will appear under a new form, and we greet it with a smile of
recognition.

The powers of facsimile in woodcut are very limited, much
more limited than in the processes of photographic engraving.
In woodcut the only line easily imitable is that of a pen charged
with ink of one tint. The printing ink can be mixed so as to
match the tint, if it is uniform, but if it is not, if some of the
lines are pale and others dark, then a difficulty arises which is
met by the engravers in their own way. They hatch across the
pale lines to make them lighter, a process which gives the right
tone to the line but destroys its resemblance to the stroke of a
pen. Again, although wood-engravers have often attempted to
imitate pencil lines it has always been withoirt success, because
printing ink op a wood-block has not the quality of pencil.
Still the reader may perhaps be surprised to hear that facsimiles
of pen-drawings cut in wood are generally better lha&^\\f^fi-
tographic facsimiles which are made W pn^Lt w'Ca Vf^. "^^*^

422 The Graphic Arts,

are two engraved facsimiles in this vohimey one from Foitany,
in which the engraver has hatched across some of his lines, and
the other from Raphael, in which he has not done so. It would
be very difficult to match the quality of these cuts in any kind
of photographic engraving which can be printed in the same
way.

Facsimile wood-engraving is still employed in publications
which can afford it Punch affords good examples of it every
week, but the vile Continental joumaux pour rire^ the widess
and tasteless comic periodicals sold at French and Italian rail-
way stations, are generally illustrated by pen-drawings done on
paper and engraved by one of the cheap and defective photo-
graphic processes. In Gustave Dora's large illustrated editions
of Dante and Don Quixote facsimile wood-engraving alternates
with interpretative, and whatever may be the varieties of opinion
as to the accuracy with which Dore has rendered the ccMicep-
tions of Dante and Cervantes, it is certain (indeed we have it
on his own authority) that his engravers have been as faithful
to the letter in facsimile as they have been faithful to the spirit
in the other class of work. Those volumes give splendid evi-
dence of technical skill in the engravers and were at the time of
their production the most striking examples of modem wood-
cutting. Since then the art has gone in other directions.

III. — Of Wood-Engraving which interprets Shades by Lines.
— I include under this head only those cuts on which the
draughtsman has laid shades on the block, generally with a
brush, which the engraver has to work upon in such a manner
that they will print tones as nearly as possible equivalent to those
of the drawing itself. The reader will easily appreciate the ex-
treme difficulty 6i this. The whites are got easily enough —
they have only to be cut out — the blacks are obtained with
even greater facility — they have only to be left — but how
about the forty or fifty shades of intermediate grey which have
to be imitated and destroyed in the very process of imitation?

Wood-Engraving. 423

The plain truth is, that this kind of wood-engraving is too
difficult to be done well by any except experienced masters,
and so it is often a failure. The old masters, in drawing for the
wood-cutter, were content to give him three or four greys to in-
terpret ; the modem draughtsman gives ten times as many. It
is by no means surprising that when the art is set, in this man-
ner, to give more subtle distinctions than were ever required of
it in former ages, the results should be often unsatisfactory.
Even when perfectly successful, so far as it goes, wood-engrav-
ing can never be delicate enough to rival intaglio engraving in
copper or stee! in the quality of tonic fineness and accuracy.
The reader will never find a woodcut equivalent to the en-
graving by Mr. Brandard, after Alfred Hunt, in this volume. .
Nevertheless, when you take into consideration the technical
difl"eTence between the two arts, the fineness of intaglio engrav-
ing is the less surprising of the two, because it comes naturally
when you have a sharp point and polished metal, whereas any
great degree of fineness in woodcut is the last result of art.
If you open any hook with landscapes in it engraved by Mr.
Edmund Evans, such as Birkel Foster's edition of Cowper's
Tast, which is one of the most perfect examples, you will find
that grey tones of a very considerable degree of delicacy are
sustained with great steadiness across very intricate passages.
I am thinking just now more particularly of grey skies and hills
seen through the intricacies of branches, or of fields of which
the green is represented by a grey and seen through hedges or
railings. Now, there is nothing easier in wood-cutting than to
set a tree against a white sky, because you have only to pick
out the sky entirely in all the openings and you have it ; but
when the sky is grey it is a different matter, because then every
little separate bit of it has to be engraved just of the right shade ;
and when this is done, so as to preserve the tone of the Sky
from right to left, and its gradation from the zenith to the hori-
zon, you may be sure that the engraver has accomplished a very
difficult feat, though it may seem as nothing to people ignorant
of his art.

424 The Graphic Arts.

The technical progress made in wood-engraving in the first
half of the nineteenth century, enabled draughtsmen on wood
to give not only light and shade, but local colour also, an im-
mense advance towards the truthful interpretation of nature.*
For example, in the little vignette at the end of the second book
of the Task^ representing Cowper's House at Olney, the dis-
tinctions of local colour are very carefully observed. You see
the difference between the dark grey thatch and the whitewashed
fronts of the cottages, between Cowper's red brick house and
the white one next it, between the brick wall and the stone
£Eu:ings. So careful has the artist been of the resources of local
colour, that a pitcher on the foreground near the pump, which
is only an eighth of an inch high, has two distinct colours, a very
dark one at the top where it has been glazed, a paler one below
where it is unglazed, and the glazed part has its touch of sparkle,
whilst on the unglazed part the light is more diffused. These
may seem trifling matters, but if anybody could have engraved
that little pitcher in the sixteenth century the whole history of
the art would have been different. The beautiful woodcut
engraved by Mr. Evans for this work (entirely with his own
hands) is in limited local colour, like an etching, the lightest
tints being merged in white, which gives the work much of its
brilliance.

It would be rather outside of our present purposes to enter
into the scientific uses of the graphic arts, but I cannot help

♦ I have more than once explained what local colour is, but as the
reader may possibly not have met with previous explanations, I repeat
here that local colour in all the black and white arts means the translation
of all hues into their relative degrees of grey. For example, the reader
has probably seen a palette set for painting in oil, and may have noticed
that, besides being different in degrees of heat and cold, the pigments are
also very different in light. If an accomplished engraver were set to
Te{)resent the palette, he could not explain that one pigment was red and
another blue, but he could show which was the darker. This is the only
sense properly attaching to the word * colour * in engraving, but, to avoid

a possible misunderstanding, 1 am aVw^^^ caxeiul to use the adjective at

thp. same time.

Wood' Engraving. 425

observing that the very great services rendered by wood-engrav-
ing to the sciences have been principally due to the modem
development of it, by which objects can be accurately shown.
The power of exhibitiog local colour in wood -engraving is of
immense importance in scientific illustration, as it explains very
many differences directly to tlie eye which pages of writing
could not make so clear. Besides this, the power of minute
finish, of which Bewick set the example in his birds, however
much it may be disdained by the exclusive admirers of early
work, is of priceless value in scientific illustration where the
smallest details are of consequence. If wood- engraving had
remained down to our time such as Albert Dtlrer, or even Hol-
bein, knew it, the sciences would have been little aided. The
reader will, however, do well to bear in mind that the qualities
of scientific and artistic engraving are very different. Those
extremely neat and sharp woodcuts that we meet with in scien-
tific books do not even give visual truth, without thinking of
artistic arrangement. They answer their own purpose, which
is explanation, but however marvellous may be the manual skill
employed wpoa them, and their scientific precision, they are
outside of the fine arts, and could not withstand any serious
artistic criticism.

IV. — 0/ Wood- Engraving which imitates otiar Arts. — The
great technical progress made by wood-engraving in the nine-
teenth century has led to its employment for an entirely new
kind of service. It has been discovered that in skilful hands
the wood-block might be made to imitate the qualities of ail the
different graphic arts, not with such perfection that there would
be any chance of mistaking a woodcut for anything else," but
with suflScient accuracy to convey to the spectator's mind a sort

* I mean that a cultivated critic would never take a woodcut for any-
thing else ; but the same cannot be said of the general public, or even c^
artists. I have seen highly finished tnodctn ■wooAoi.Vi. Vi:tK.Ti.^oi tavi'^^"
p/3(e engravings, both by the laity and bj aOis^a.

426 The Graphic Arts*

of echo which would recall the qualities of the art imitated to
his memory.

It may be well, before going any farther, to ask whether this
new development of wood-engraving ought to be encouraged or
repressed. It displeased all severe judges at first because they
preferred the genuine thing — an honest piece of cutting in fac-
simile, like a Holbein, or an honest piece of true white-line
independent wood-engraving, quite different firom all other arts,
like a Bewick. This was my view when I first saw the produc-
tions of that school of imitative wood-cutting which has sprung
up in America, and been fostered there by successfiil magazines.
It seemed to me that here was a new device for tickling the
public taste by variety, when it so grievously wanted educating
into the appreciation of the one or two simple styles which are
eternally right and ought to be permanently acceptable. Since
then my views on the subject have undergone some modification.
It seems to me now that if the situation of this imitative wood-
cutting is properly understood it may render very acceptable
services. It can be made to convey a suggestion or a remi-
niscence of certain qualities in other arts which may be well
worth having. For example, I once wrote an article for Scrib-
Iter's Magazine on Mr. Haden's etchings, and the great skiU
of the American wood-engravers permitted us to give reduced
copies of many etchings, copies which, without having all the
qualities of the originals (flat printing can never represent
intaglio printing), were still near enough to convey a good idea
of the originals to anyone who understood etching. Here was
a service that could not have been so cheaply rendered by any
other means. In the same way this imitative wood-cutting will
convey a very fair idea of a picture, giving the local colour with
considerable accuracy, and even suggesting the touch; or it
will give the softness (approximatively) of a charcoal drawing,
or the darks and lights and flat middle tint of a black and white
chaJk drawing on grey paper. All these, and many other feats
of imitation too long to enumwaX.^, xc^a:^ \i^ ^\^oa>a& 's^xhSk^^

Wood-Engraving. 427

in a great democratic community where thousands of people
receive a good magazine, yet could not afford to (ill twenty
portfolios with different classes of prints. They get, in their
one magazine, the same variety, or a reilecdon of it, that richer
people have in their collections.

The development of delicate and versatile wood- engraving in
America is due to the managers of Scribnet's Magazine, who
worked resolutely with this definite end in view, and gradually
reached perfection by paying for many cuts which were never
published, and by forming a school of wood-engravers animated
by the same spirit. Now, whatever may be the differences of
opinion about the desirableness of this imitative art, there can
be no question that the Americans have far surpassed all other
nations in deUcacy of execution. The manual skill displayed
in their woodcuts is a continual marvel, and it is accompanied
by so much intelligence — I mean by so much critical under-
standing of different graphic arts — that a portfolio of their best
woodcuts is most interesting, Not only do they understand
engraving thoroughly, but they are the best printers in the world,
and they give an amount of care and thought to their printing
which would be considered uncommercial elsewhere.*

The two superiorities in American wood -engraving are in tone
and texture — two qualities very popular in modern times in all

■ ' Our Art-Editor, Mr. A. W. Drake, watches from day to day the print-
ing of every cut, carefully revising the work of the oveilayer, and taking to
both ovetliyer and presaman, as guides to their work, not only the arlista'
fine proofa, but even Ihe originals (drawings, etchings, even oil-paintings),
in order to approach as near as possible to the co-related effects of tone.' —
Prhiate Utter from Dr. Holland, Edilor ^/ ' Scribner's Magazine,' Ui the
Anther.

It should be explained that overlaying in the printing of woodcuts is
aji art by which the pressure can be increased on certain parts of the cut
which are to appear darker. This increase of pressure is obtained by
pasting little pieces of paper on the inside of the press. The refined art
of woodcut printing has only been understood in modern times. The
reader would be quite unable to recognise a fine TMiitvtwiii&K».v""S. is.
were printed \ia.d\y, like those upon stiitet baWada.

428 The Graphic Arts,

the graphic arts which can attain them. Tone in wood-cutting
depends entirely upon the management of greys. In etching
there are half-a-dozen different qualities of black — all black,
yet producing quite different effects upon the eye ; in woodcut
there is only one black. In painting there are many different
whites, all of them equally called ' whites,' yet bearing little
relation to each other ; in woodcut there is only a single white,
and it is always got in the same way, by excavating the wood.
This being so, white and black are settied for the wood-engraver,
and he has not to think about them ; but it is not so with inter-
mediate shades, and I cannot but heartily admire the almost
unlimited ingenuity with which the Americans vary not only the
tone, but the very quality, of these intermediates, getting not
one gamut only but several, with the faculty of going from one
to the other on occasion, as if changing the stops of an organ.
Some of their greys are pure and clear, others cloudy ; others,
' like veils of thinnest lawn ; ' others, again, are semi-transparent,
like a very light wash of body-colour, and whatever maybe their
quality it is always surprising how steadily a delicate tone is
maintained in them. As for texture, these engravers seem able
to imitate anything that is set before them. It would be an
exaggeration to say that they get the exact textures of an oil-
painting, but they come near enough to recall them vividly
to our minds. To appreciate the technical advance, we must
always remember that tone and texture are simply absent fix)m
the school of Holbein, and that whilst the engravers of the
present day can produce an exact facsimile of old work, the
old engravers had not even begun that course of experiment
and of study which has trained such consummate workmen as
Juen^ing, Speer, Kingsley, Closson, Muller, and Cole.

Comparison of Wood-Engrainng with Nature. — The use

made of the art by Bewick for the illustration of natural history

is clear evidence that it will render certain orders of natural

truth with wonderful fidelity. The plumage of birds, the fins

and scales of fishes have nevei \ie«ti >aex\&\ ^^^T^^ssfces. xss. ^3k?|

Wood-Engraving. 429

Knd of art dependent on white and black than they were in
the simple wood-cutting of Bewick. Since his time it has been
used for the most various kinds of scientific illustration requiring
very minute record of natural truth.

Outside of scientific illustration woodcut has been little em-
ployed for the direct interpretation of nature. Few artists
except Bewick, and George Manson a littie in his youth, have
gone to natiu^ with the intention of translating natural appear-
ances directly into wood-engraviug. The common practice
has been to sketch with the intention of making an efTective
black and white drawing upon the wood, usually with a hard
pencil point, Indian ink, and opaque white, and this was handed
over to the wood-engraver to make the best he could of it,
nevertheless by constantly drawing for the engraver such an
artist as Birket Foster would know the resources of the art, and
have them frequently in his thoughts,

What has been said about the relation of water monochrome
and pen and ink drawing with nature is applicable to two great
divisions of wood- engraving, except that, however great its
delicacy, it can never be so delicate as washes in Indian ink,
and however careful facsimile cutting may be there will always
exist some inferiority to the original pen-drawing. Perhaps the
truest account of the matter will be to say that wood-engraving
can represent a great deal of natural truth, and many kinds of
it, but not direcfly. Nobody engraves woodcuts straight fi-om
nature, and the truth of nature in passing through the medium
of another art to the wood-engraver must always incur a loss,
like literature in translations. Still the art of wood-engraving,
by its extreme suppleness and versatility, has done a great deal
to spread amongst mankind a better appreciation of natural
beauty. The better class of illustrated books and periodicals
form in course of time great popular museums, not only of art,
but of nature also.

430 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER XXV.

ETCHING AND DRY POINT.

IN etching the line is bitten into metal by an acid ; there is
never etching without corrosion. In dry point the line is
scratched with the sharp point of some instrument which may
be a diamond but is more commonly steel.

The two arts, as the reader has already perceived from this
brief account of them, are quite distinct in their nature, aid so
might have occupied separate chapters, but I prefer to speak of
them in one for a special reason. Although so different these
arts go together in the same work like glazing and impasto in
painting. Sometimes they are kept separate, and you have
pure dry point without the least trace of etching, or you have
etched lines without a single dry point scratch, just as in paint-
ing you have works entirely in transparent colours and others
in which all the colours are opaque. I propose to describe
etching and dry point separately to begin with, and afterwards
to speak of the results which may be obtained from their com-
bination.

An etching may be made upon any kind of metal, and even
upon stone, but the best substance to etch upon is copper-
Steel resists printing better, but is not nearly so agreeable to
work upon, and does not yield such beautiful prints. There is
a certain softness, richness, mellowness of tone in an impression
from a copper-plate, unsteeled, which is not equalled by the
drier printing of the harder metal. At one time I rather under-
valued this distinction, but "^iVi. Qio\Mvft%, \.\\^ b^?A. printer in

Etching and Dry Point. 431

England, convinced me of its importance by experiments made
in my presence.

Zinc has been employed by some artists and is liked by ihem
because it gives a rich and picturesque line. I admire a good
etching which has been done on zinc, when the subject is of
such a nature that the quality of the zinc line, which is rugged,
is suitable to it ; but I have not found zinc a pleasant metal to
work upon, because, in my limited experience of it, the biting
went forward unequally in different parts of the plate, a defect
which may be attributable to differences of density. Other
artists complain of the difEculty they experience in laj-ing the
etching-ground on ainc.

Since we possess in pure copper the most absolutely perfect
metal for etching that can be desired or imagined it seems a
waste of energy to seek for any other material. Copper of the
best quality is at the same time hard enough to yield a suffi-
ciently numerous edidon and sofl enough for the workman to
do whatever he Hkes with it. Copper is a delightful metal to
work in. If your plate happens to be rather too large for the
subject you can saw it quite easily ; if it is too thick at the
edges you can bevel it ; if you want to efface a passage you
can take off shaving with the scraper almost as easily as a
cabinet-maker removes them from hard wood ; and if your
shaving has made too much of a hollow you can restore the
level of the surface by a blow of a hammer at the back. Copper
is not so rapidly soluble in acid as either zinc or steel, but it is
quite soluble enough, and the acid leaves in it a line of a quality
more pure than that in zinc yet rich enough in printing. The
faintest scratch on copper yields an impression, a perfect image
of itself in printing-ink, yet a deep line can be effaced so per-
fectly that not the slightest trace of it will remain. This ad-
mirable metal unites the most delicate qualities to the most
robust. However exquisite your sensations, however refined
your taste, your plate of polished copper w.\\ "oe e'^^iA "y^ ^&
your demands upon its delicacy ; and it ■you -waTA %we:^^S\ 0^

432 The Graphic Arts.

9

expression you have at your disposal, not one only, but a dozen
powers of darkness.*

The principle of etching is familiar to people who are entirely
unacquainted with the fine arts. If you desire to protect iron
from rust you cover it with some composition, and if by acci-
dent there is some place which has not been covered the rust
will attack that place and eat into the metal there. Suppose
you took a plate of steel and painted it, but not quite perfectly,
so that a few spots were left unpainted, the rust would attack
those spots, and now if the paint were removed from the rest
of the plate, and you covered it all over with printing-ink, and
then wiped the ink off the smooth surface everywhere, but did
not get it out of the rusty pittings and hollows, you would find
on taking a proof that you would have a perfectly accurate
image of every one of them. Printers of steel plates are only too
well acquainted with this, for if by neglect a steel plate is allowed
to rust anywhere, the rusty places all print with the most pro-
voking perfection. This is Nature's etching, and there are many
other examples of unintentional etching in the world.

Lines were made by corrosion in ornamental work (in armour,
for instance) long before anyone thought of the process as being
likely to serve for the multiplication of drawings. When first
employed for artistic processes, etching would be simply con-
sidered as a more rapid substitute for the laborious process of
the burin. Afterwards, when the art had been employed by
artists whose genius was exactly in harmony with it, men began
to perceive that etching had certain qualities of its own, quite

* One of the most interesting and valuable lessons I ever received
in technical matters was from Waltner. We had been talking about
etching, and this led him to say what variety of resource there was in the
art, and to prove it he showed me the same tofu, so far as mere darkness
was concerned, reproduced in several different plates with the most
various quality. Such a master as Waltner has all these different quali-
ties of dark shading i>erfectly at command when he wants them, and has
only to make his selection, which is determined by the character of the
subject.

Etching and Dry Point. 433

different from those of burin engraving, which gave it a peculiar
position amongst the fine arts. Then came a change of fashion,
when etching was neglected, despised, and ignorantly misunder-
stood. Finally, the increase of art-cultuie in the nineteenth
century re-estabhshed it as one of the favourite modes of expres-
sion adopted by men of original artistic genius,

I have already said ao much about etching in other works,
that it will be well for me to study brevity here, but, although
this chapter will be short, the reader must not estimate the
importance of the art by the number of pages devoted to it in
this volume. Etching is the only form of engraving in which
an artist can sketch. Nobody can really sketch with a burin
either in wood or metal. All that one can do with a burin is
to imitate slowly and cautiously, in cold biood, the swift and
fiery expression of a man of genius, the difference in state of
mind between the artist and his copyist being the difference
between the careless ease of a man who signs a letter and the
elaborate accuracy of the facsimile engraver who imitates a
signature. The burin-engraver who pretends to be free and
spontaneous may lawfuBy deceive us for our pleasure, because
the appearance of facility is agreeable to the human mind, but
still he deceives us ; all honest burin work proclaims itself at
once for what it is — a weary toil that can never keep pace with
the nimble agility of thought. Who ever heard of a burinist
taking his plate out into the fields, or a wood-engraver his block?
Etching is the only form of engraving which has ever been
practised directly from nature. Etchers go out with their mate-
rials hke painters or any other draughtsmen.

Here, then, in this charming directness and rapidity, Is the
attraction which led the old artists to the etching point and
acid, and which, since their time, has induced so many dis-
tinguished painters to try these materials. We know, however,
that although etching is an artist's art, and has been loved and
iractised by men who were eminent in other pursuits, it lay for

long time, for several generations, under the cloud of an all

434 ^^ Graphic Arts.

but absolute unpopularity. If you had gone into a drawing-
room full of well-bred people, at any time in the first half of
this century, and happened to mention etching, the probabili^
is that no one in the room would have known what the word
meant. The ladies would have thought you meant drawing in
pen and ink, the men would have been puzzled, and inclined
to dislike you as one of those persons who use technical terms
out of season. The only safe way, at that time, was to call
etchings and dry points * engravings,* by which two false ideas
were conveyed — the first, that they were executed slowly with
a burin ; the second, that they were not original works, but
copies fi-om designs by other men. Nobody except a few
artists and collectors knew that great painters in past times had
produced original works in etching and dry point which, as
records of their thoughts, as expressions of their genius, deserved
not less attention than their most celebrated pictures.

The few collectors who possessed etchings in those days knew
by experience that they were seldom appreciated, and opened
their portfolios only to fiiends who shared an eccentric taste.
The general public, beijig rarely troubled with the sight of an
etching, could view the art with indifference, but a little later,
when it was rather more talked about, this indifference often
gave way to hostility. Etching was condemned as a sort of bad
engraving, as something which would be engraving if it could,
and finally it came to be decided in the Philistine mind that
* etching was an imperfect art.^

I have spoken elsewhere in this volume of the fallacious form
of criticism which decides that some of the graphic arts are
'imperfect' because they cannot imitate with equal facility the
whole of the qualities of nature. If you once admit that theory
you cannot stop, consistently, until you have rejected, one after
another, the whole of the graphic arts, and cast them behind
you, so that you may stand face to face with Nature, and be rid
forever of all human intervention between her perfection and
whaX you suppose to be youi ovm petfecX a:^^\^cAasl\a^ ^s^i com.-

Elching and Dry Point. 435

plete enjoyment thereofl There will then be two perfections,
hers and yours, the imperfect arts being no longer in the way.
Such a state of things is conceivable ; it is the condition of the
Negro of the Upper Nile, of the American Indian on the Red
River. If, however, we admit graphic art at all, we must admit
its limitations. Oil-painting cannot give the light of nature,
nor charcoal its hues, nor transparent water-colour its substance,
nor fresco its depth, nor silver-point its chiaroscuro, yet all
these arts have been pursued contentedly, nay, even enthusias-
tically, by men whose sight was as clear as ours, and whose
knowledge was at least equal to our own. So it is with etching,
an art practised by men who had proved their strength in other
fields, but who found in etchmg a form of artistic expression
which, after careful experiments, they ascertained to be satis-
factory. They Uked it because it enabled them to disseminate
drawings which were at Uie same time printed by hundreds and
yet really originals ; they liked it because it was both very deU-
cate in faint bitings and very strong in deep ones ; they liked it
because it allowed ample freedom for comprehensive sketching,
and yet permitted the most severe and studious drawing wher-
ever it might happen to be necessary. Now, as to the limita-
tions of the art. They must have found out — these keen-
witted, observant artists — they must have found out, after a
little practice in their youth, that etching was not by any means
the best of the graphic arts for the rendering of subtle and
delicately various tone, that it was more a linear art, like pen-
drawing, than a tonic art, like washing, with Indian ink. They
accepted this limitation contentedly, yet not in any rigid and
absolute spirit — not in that petulant temper which casts aside
an instrument as useless because it cannot accomplish every-
thing. Had they been petulant amateurs, they would perhaps
have said, ' Etching is good for line but not for shade, we will
use it for Une only,' but being cultivated artists they determined
to use shade with caution, and to make it sugjeW. \a "iwt -oasife.
of the spectator a more complete cti\aTO%CQTQ "Cciasv "CoaJ. "«"'«>*^

436 The Graphic Arts.

it actually gave. They were quite accustomed to this kind of
reserve in their drawings on pai>er, drawings in which (as we
have seen in our earlier chapters) the idea of light and shade
was often given with but a few tones, and given not incorrectly,
because those few were so judiciously selected, and so well
placed^ that the imagination readily fills up the intervals between
them.

It is sometimes supposed that the difficulties of biting an
etching must be so great that it is impossible, except by a mere
chance, to get anything like the precise depth that we require,
but the art is rich in resources which its detractors are careful
to ignore. A cautious artist may, if he pleases, go down to his
strong darks gradually, to avoid the risk of over-biting. The
reader is aware that the copper-plate is covered with what we
call 'etching-ground,* which is a mixture of wax, gum-mastic,
and bitumen. It is best applied in the shape of a paste made
by melting it with an addition of spike oil which is afterwards
expelled by heat. The ground is then smoked by holding it
over the flame of wax tapers, and if the operations have been
well performed it looks like polished ebony. The drawing is
done with a steel instrument technically called a needle, but
which is sometimes blunt and sometimes sharp, as the artist
happens to require. The point leaves the copper bare along
its track, a very fine line if the point is sharp, a stronger and
thicker line if it is blunter. When the drawing is finished there
is nothing as yet upon the copper except very faint scratches.
If the etching-ground were removed by dissolution the scratches
would print, but only in just perceptible marks upon the paper.
Here then comes the use of the acid, and technical writers tell
you that if you let the acid bite a little, and then protect the
palest parts of your work with a varnish that will resist acid, and
then let it bite again and protect the next in depth, and so on,
leaving the darkest lines to be bitten till the last — they tell you
that if you do this you will get all the tones that you desire.
WeU, perhaps you might, \i yow \v3A ^M^^rcsaXxaA ^^^\^ ^/^^ ^

Etching and Dry Point. 437

to enable you to know exactly how the acid was doing its work
as if a printed proof of the plate were offered for your inspection
every ten seconds whilst the biting was in progress, but as, in
fact, you cannot see anything, and can only calculate, it will
often happen that calculation is not quite a safe guide, and
when at length the etching-ground is removed and the proof
taken you may discover that the result has not answered your
expectations. This difficulty of caJculating the effects of acid is
the special difficulty of etching, but in all human occupations
when a peculiar difficulty is known to exist the ingenuity and
forethought of able men are employed to meet it, and counter-
act it, as we see constantly in mechanical and scientific inven-
tion. In the present case the difficulty is met by so arranging
matters that several different proofe may be taken during the
progress of the work, and by avoiding extreme depth and ex-
treme delicacy during its earlier stages. The first bitings, per-
haps two or three in number, or even one only, are done exclu-
sively for middle tint, and then the etching-ground is removed
by dissolving it in turpentine. The plate is then thoroughly
cleaned and a proof taken, which shows the exact condition of
its biting so far, and the parts intended to be darker can easily
be bitten again in the same lines. The reader may ask how
tliis can be done when the etching -ground has been removed?
Will not the acid attack the spaces between the lines as well?
It would if they were not covered, hut by using a valuable in-
strument, the roller, the spaces can be covered whilst the insides
of the lines are left bare and exposed to a fresh attack of the
acid. Another proof may then be taken, and if the darks are
not yet deep enough they can be enriched by successive re-
bilings, proofs being taken in the intervals to report progress.
The middle tints and extreme darks being now settled we may
pass to the delicate greys, which, according to the order of this
process, will have been reserved for the lasL The plate is now
completely covered with etching-ground so as to SiV w's? '^ "^"^
lines and protect the spaces between l\ieuv, an Q^e.^aX\c.^ ^^^''■^"

438 The Graphic Arts.

ing skill and care, but quite feasible if you know how to set about
it ; and when it is effected, the artist puts in those lines which
are intended to represent his pale shades. With a proper acid
bath * the pale shades can be bitten just as easily and surely as
any others. When they are done a new proof is taken and the
plate is now completed so far as pure etching is concerned.

A plate in this condition of pure etching ought to be sound
in drawing and to have quite enough light-and-shade to suggest
complete light-and-shade to the spectator, but it can never have
that fulness and precision of minute intermediate tones which
may be attained with facility in the true chiaroscuro methods
such as water or oil monochrome and charcoal, and it is a waste
of effort to attempt rivalry with them on their own ground.
Nevertheless, a still closer approach to perfect shading may be
made by the employment of dry point, which has always been
recognised as an etcher's auxiliary art, and which every accom-
plished etcher has taken care to learn. The best way to under-
stand the value of dry point as an auxiliary is to study it first as
an independent art.

Mr. Hardy's plate in this volume is in pure dry point. Mr.
Hardy took a plate of copper and drew upon it with a sharp
steel point, every stroke being a scratch on the polished surface.
Now there is something peculiar in the nature of a scratch as
distinguished from an etched line. When a line is bitten the
copper is dissolved out of it by the acid, and therefore is simply
absent, but with a dry point line it is not so. Here the dis-
turbed copper is raised up out of the furrow and pushed either

* I spare the reader all chemical details in this chapter as I have
gone into them thoroughly in works concerned specially with etching. I
may, however, say here that in the biting of etchings, as in all other
scientific operations, the same materials and conditions always produce
the same results. Artists frequently complain of the uncertainty of etch-
ing because they do not take care to have the same strength of acid and
the same temperature. The metal, too, should be of uniform density.
It is not the fault of the process if the operator will not test his acid or
use a thermometer.

Etching and Dry Point. 439

to one side or the other, or to both sides at once, and the way
in which it is pushed aside depends upon the artist's manner of
holding the needie. Tliis raised copper is called the bur, and
it catches ink when the printer inks the plate. Vou notice a
certain softness at the edge of the Une, a shade, as it were, out-
side of the line ; well, this is the consequence of the bur, for
if there were no bur that soft shade would not exist, and you
would only have an impression of the clear sharp line itself,
which would have the appearance of a fine engraved line. The
bur can be removed very easily, and then you get something
like engraver's work ; or it can be left, and then you get some-
thing which resembles mezzotint in quality and is really the
same thing as mezzotint in principle. Both kinds of dry point
are very valuable resources, and are often employed by skilful
etchers at the finishing of a plate. It has been said that dry
point is to an etching exactly what glazing is to an oil picture,
it gently darkens and softens the work, and throws over il, as it
were, a veil of a different quality from its own ; but though this
is true it is not the whole truth, for dry point enables an etcher
to add passages of extreme delicacy which would otherwise be
beyond his reach. The diamond may be used for some of
these, as it cuts delightfully and is held like a pencil. But not
only does dry point add to an etcher's resources at the upper
end of the scale, it enables him to add richness and softness
to his darks. The reader may see for himself, in Mr. Hardy's
pure dry point, the sort of quality which is attainable in it.

Again, an etcher does not altogether reject the burin, though
he employs it with great moderation, and generally conceals its
use so that the hardness of its line may not establish a disso-
nance. Nevertheless, the burin may be employed as follows,
and is regularly so employed by one of the most distinguished
etchers in Europe. After etching to a certain moderate depth,
he deepens his dark lines gradually with a burin, |pd then re-
bites them slightly with acid to restore to them the quality of an
etched line. The degree to which the burin mi^ln be used as

440 Tlie Graphic Arts.

an auxiliary, without by any means relying upon it exclusively,
will be better understood by an example. The copy of Durer's
' Shield with the Lion and Cock,* in this volume, is an etching
finished with the burin, but here, of course, the burin work is left
without re-biting, as the object was to imitate a line-engraving.

After all biting is done with, a part of the etching may be
made paler in two different ways : either it may be worked upon
with the burnisher, which brings the sides of the lines nearer
together, and by making them narrower diminishes the darkness
of the shading, or else it may be reduced by rubbing the place
with charcoal in turpentine, which takes off copper. The bur-
nisher is better than charcoal when it can do enough, because
it does not alter the nature of the bitten line, which in etching
is very peculiar. An etched line is not, in section, like a V,
neither is it like a semicircle, but it is like a Moorish arch in-
verted. Suppose you took a copper tube and filed one side of
it till there was an opening all along, and then went on filing till
a good deal of copper was removed, but not half of it, then the
inside of that tube would be like the inside of an etched line.
The opening at the top would not be equal to the diameter of
the tube. Now, if you went on filing till half the tube was filed
away, the opening, instead of being narrower, would be posi-
tively wider, and this happens when the charcoal is used mod-
erately in etching. The lines get wider and shallower at the
same time, thereby losing much of their peculiar character.
But again, if you go on rubbing, you get down past the place
where the line is broadest, and after that it gets rapidly nar-
rower, but it is so shallow now that it does not look as if it had
been freshly etched, and assumes a worn appearance, as if the
plate had been too much printed from. Therefore we say that,
although charcoal answers its purpose of making a plate paler, it
does so at the cost of freshness, and is better avoided.*

* There « another very curious effect of charcoal, which is this : If

the plate has already been etched upon in lines of various depth, and you

afterwards reduce it with chatcoa\,'^o\3L'w\\^\fc\ >iici^ VtQr^\>assoax&^ft.e,cts

Etching and Dry Point. 441

Etching is equal in freedom to any of the graphic arts, supe-
rior, indeed, to most of them in this respect, and the conse-
quence is that it has been pursued in the most various ways,
according to the idiosyncrasy of the artist. The reader will be
quite prepared to hear that from my point of view tliis variety
is highly desirable, and that if uniformity of manner could be
attained I should consider it a great misfortune. So long as
any one of the fine arts is really and truly alive it is sure to be
various, because every artist will express his own way of seeing
things, and exercise his own peculiar kind of imagination ; but
when art becomes a Ufeless tradition we find artists expressing
themselves in the same way. Again, if etching were an imper-
fect reflection of nature, as photography is, and nothing more,
if the minds of artists were only so many mirrors, their work
would not vary more widely than photographs taken from na-
ture ; but the graphic arts which are really alive express the
feelings of men more accurately than the facts of the external
world. With these views I am not likely to lay down narrow
laws which the etchers of the future would be sure to disregard,
and be right in disregarding, but there are certain considerations
which may prevent a waste of effort.

Etching is a linear art, and therefore it is a pity when those
who follow it neglect to cultivate the power of expression by
line. This is in great part an affair of idiosyncrasy, and I am
disposed to believe, notwithstanding the famous artists who,
like Titian, have combined great linear with great pictorial

of the lines, in this way — the shallow lines will show (he effect of reduc-
tion very much sooner than the deep ones, and if you do not polish the
shallow lines off altogether they will soon look as if they were half worn
away by printing. Again, if there are difierences of depth which looked
nearly equal before (and this may happen), the reduction of the plate
with charcoal may establish a far more striking difference. .Suppose one
man has 22.000/. and another has 1 2,oool., and each of them loses 10,000/. ;
the loss is the same in money in both cases, but it reveals the ^t««t
man's poverty to the eyes of the world, wtieteaa Vtic T\i:Xiei iKiri'i\'«*'*
Dot nearly so apputat.

442 The Graphic Arts.

power, that a painter would be all the better for seeing things
in masses instead of lines ; but if a draughtsman sees always in
patches and masses, and does not enjoy linear interest and
beauty, he would do better to adopt charcoal or mezzotint
than etching. Many attempts have been made to do without
the expressive line in etching — to use lines for shading and
texture only, and not for expressional accent — and a very con-
siderable degree of success has attended some of these attempts,
but, after all, they have never the animation which belongs to
the line, and they do not awaken the same interest. The reader
may judge for himself by a reference to Rembrandt's famous
pig, reproduced for this volume. He may like the subject, or
he may not, but in any case he will at once perceive that there
is great vivacity in the drawing, and that he feels stimulated
and interested by this vivacity itself, by the action of the human
hand which traced the singularly expressive lines, and by that
of the directing brain. Now, imagine what this same subject
would look like if it were copied in charcoal tones without lines*
Would there not be a distinct loss, and particularly a loss of
expressional force ? I am quite sure there would.

There can be no objection to throwing a certain amoimt of
shade over lines, but they ought to remain visible and to do
most of the work. Rembrandt tried many experiments in
etching ; sometimes he did with very few lines, and did well,
at others he shaded very laboriously, but to my taste the most
delightful of all his etchings are those in which line and shade
are lightly and somewhat capriciously mixed, whilst the paper
is allowed to play an important part The best work in etching
is the easy and unpretending expression of knowledge whicl'
has been perfectly assimilated. Many a fault may be tolerated
if only the work is fresh, observant, and sincere. There are
passages of faulty biting, and of inaccurate drawing, in some of
the etchings we most heartily value, whilst plates are often pro-
<iuced in these days in which you can discover but a single
dekct, which is that of a geiveiaX xke-^omecie.^.

Etching and Dry Point. 443

There is a certain sobriety which is not tiresome, and as ex-
amples of it I have given two plates by Hollar, the more will-
ingly that, although he was spoken of in Etching and Etchers,
he was not represented amongst the illustrations. The reader
wiU bear in mind that Hollar was an engraver, and therefore
disciplined by great labour on metal, for he was a slave to his
profession ; but although this discipline may have prevented
exuberance, and made him draw patiently what Rembrandt
would have sketched with spirit, he was so perfectly sincere
and straightforward that his work has considerable charm of a
quiet kind.

Etching has been much employed of late for the translation
of pictures, and some men, especially Rajon, Flameng, and
Unger, have made great reputarions in this department of art.
They have overcome the difficulty of tone, at least quite suffi-
ciently to satisfy the mind, and as the liberty of the etching
point is exceedingly favourable to the imitation of brush-work,
they have often been able to give a very clear idea of a painter's
handling. Anyone who understood art, yet had never seen a
picture by Frans Hals, might get a very accurate idea of his
manner from the etchings of Unger. Besides handling, the
etching process is extremely favourable to the imitation of tex-
tures, as the reader will easily see for himself on referring to
such plates as Mr. Slocombe's ' His Grace,' after Pettie, where
satin is admirably interpreted, or to many plates by Waltner
from the old masters, in which the intricacy and facile fall of
lace, the light-absorbing richness of veSvet, the sheen of armour,
the lightness of feathers, the tough strength of leather, the sup-
ple softness of comfortable felt, are all expressed so truly that
not only the eye but even the very sense of touch receives at
least an ideal satisfaction. The beauty of the naked figure is
too delicate for pictures of the nude to be satisfactorily ren-
dered in etching, but they may be admirably bterpreted, as
Waltner treats them, by means of dry povnt wKfti. 'Oct \i\it t>;-
moved for the flesh and etching for tVve badK-stcm-ni. "S^ms.

444 '^^ Graphic Arts,

method gives an increased delicacy to the figures by contrasting
their purity with the vigorous picturesqueness of the etched
work around them.

Painted landscapes have often been treated in etching on a
mistaken principle. The etchers have laboriously tried to imi-
tate them tone by tone, which is an error, because a painter
easily surpasses, in minuteness of subdivision, any fine distinc-
tions within the reach of pure etching. The proper way to etch
fi*om a painted landscape is to deal with it exactly as if it were
a natural one, or, in other words, to omit all tones which can-
. not be given accurately, and be satisfied with suggesting them.
Acting on this principle, MM. Gaucherel, Rajon, and Brunet-
Debaines, have interpreted (I do not say imitated) some of
the most difficult amongst the later works of Turner in a manner
which recalls them vividly to our recollection, which is far better
than heavy, unintelligent cop)dsm. In such etching as this the
dry point plays an important part, and aquatint (which is really
etching in spaces instead of lines) is quite admissible.

People who are accustomed to regulate theu* conceptions of
things by names without troubling themselves to inquire into
their nature, are not aware that etching is much employed by
engravers. They use it generally in the first stage of a plate
to get the drawing in, but they bite lightly so that the etching
may be afterwards overpowered by the work of the burin.
There are, however, many passages in some plates by engravers
which are etched and left so, and not unfi*equently re-bitten,
especially foliage, foreground plants, the fur of animals, rugged
touches upon rocks, and, generally, what we are accustomed
to call picturesque things. As in a painter's etching the work
of the burin is often dissimulated by a re-biting in the same
lines, so the engraver may hide his etched work by retouching
it with the burin when the nature of the line allows the burin to
go well into it.

A few words about the printing of etchings are necessary in
conclusion. There is notiim^ t^vaX. cxy^ks* ^tmxa.^'o^ mote

Etching and Dry Point. 445

than administering stem reproofs to workers in the fine arts and
forbidding them, in a voice of auLhorily, to take advantage of
some resource which happens to be particularly convenient.
The fine arts are an ill-chosen field for the exhibition of this
dogmatism, for it always happens that when you have laid down
a rigid rule of some kind several artists of ability will infringe
your rule, and do it with such undeniable taste and judgment
that the public will side with them, and you, the authoritative
critic, will be left to preach in the desert. Some writers have
laid down the law that in the printing of etchings the plate
should always be wiped perfectly clean, a law which artists will
not obey, because by leaving a little tone of ink on the darker
shades they are supported on the principle of Une and fiat wash,
often to their very great advantage. I need hardly observe that
when an edition has to be printed this support to the line must
be of a very simple nature, but it is well worth having. The
argument on the other side is that the artist ought to etch all
the tones himself upon the copper, to which he answers that a
little ink judiciously lefl on the surface gives a delicacy and
softness to the proof which are not attainable by any other
means. If the printer is able to carry out the intentions of the
artist, why should he not do so? He may remain quite as
strictly subordinate as the printer of" a poem who, without taking
upon himself to interfere with the thoughts of the poet, gives
them, by the light of type, much additional clearness and bril-
liance, whilst he helps even the very music of the verse.

Soft-ground etching is an imitation of qualities in chalk or
lead-pencil which do not belong to the ordinary needle-line.
The common etching-ground is employed, but it is softened by
mixture with tallow. In cold weather the tallow and etching-
ground are in equal quantities, in warm weather less tallow is
used, and if the weather is hot it may be one-half the quantity
of the etching-ground. T"he plate being covered and allowed
to cool, a piece of paper with a fine grain is wetted and stteXdosA
upon it as if for water-colour pEnnling, anfi. on 'Or^s ■^■mjk^ '^^

446 The Graphic Arts.

subject is drawn in lead-pencil with a moderate pressure, in-
creased in the darks. The paper is now removed and it takes
the etching-ground ifrom the plate in a peculiar way, so that if
the copper is bitten it will give the appearance of pencil or chalk
lines in the proof. This kind of etching has often given good
results, but it is not much employed because lithography and
heliographic reproductions of drawings resemble it in quality.
Soft-ground etchings are rarely left without re-touching of some
kind, either by means of the ordinary etched linj in a hard
ground applied afterwards, or by the dry point, or by the rau^
lette, which is a little wheel with points in it imitating the effect
of mezzotint in line.

Comparison of Etching and Dry Point with Nature. — In
the chapter on Woodcut I showed that the means of expression
which belonged naturally to that art are the white line, the white
space, and the fiat black. Etching is in striking contrast with
wood-engraving in technical resources except as to the white
space, which it has without labour. The powers of etching are
the black line, the dark or light shade composed of lines, and
the white space.

Of all engraved lines the etched one is that which deals most
easily with the variety of nature. You can etch a tree as easily
as you could draw it with a pencil point, but you could not
engrave it, so as to make it look natural, with a burin. As the
etched line follows quickly all the ins and outs of picturesque
material, it deals admirably with ruinous architecture and with
all kinds of old streets, cottages, rustic material in farm-yards,
animals, and either rustic or romantic costume. When we come
to effect the case is different. It has already been explained
that etching of itself cannot follow the extreme subtlety and
delicacy of natmal effect because that always depends ultimately
upon the finest possible distinctions of tone and the most tender
gradation ; but with the resources of auxiliary dry point, and
especially of interpreting w\\a\. caxmoV \i^ vavvtaled, the etcher

Etching and Dry Point. 447

can suggest to an intelligent person the whole range of natural
effect, a fine intellectual exercise for him, and a keen pleasure
for the spectator, whose intelligence is also exercised iu meeting
him half-way.

Etchers have a white line or a white spot at their command,
though it cannot equal the lineness of the white line in wood-
cut. With a brush charged with any varnish able to resist acid,
an etcher can ' stop out ' white strokes across work aheady
drawn but not yet bitten. I do not much approve of this prac-
tice, for a reason which the reader will appreciate. The execu-
tive expression of etdiing is linear, and when an etcher shades
he does so by lines. Slopping out for whites comes across
those lines and suddenly interrupts them, afler which they seem
to start again with an unnatural abruptness on the other side of
the stoppage. Nevertheless, this process is used with great
skill and judgment by Edraond Yon in the herbage of his fore-
grounds. A system more surely in accordance with the genius
of etching is to avoid indicating minute white Ughts specially,
but to take account of their efTect on the general scheme of
hghi and shade, making the work generally lighter in tone
where they are numerous.

Jules Jacquemart proved by his own practice how wonderfully
etching may be made to imitate the qualities of substances,
such as jasper, onyx, bronze, crystal, and lapis lazuli, with the
most delicate work of the silversmith and of carvers in ivory or
wood. The impulse given by Jacquemait to still-life in etching
has been followed since by Gustave Greux and other con-
tributors to L'Art, who have occasionally given wonderful
plates from objects, such as state carriages, sedan chairs, and
pieces of artistic furniture. The same direction has been fol-
lowed in still-life studies by pupils at South Kensington, under
the guidance of Mr, Slocombe, and with success. Tliis is a
kind of etching which requires close observation, the faculty of
seeing the artistic qualities of objects, and not a. V\\J.\e ■ro.'ams.'Si
Bltill, but it does not require invention, ai\i \!rve^e:\.cp!e. \i. ■ns^'^

448 The Graphic Arts,

more within the reach of ordinary men than original compo-
sitions. There may be, however, a degree of skill in such
work which goes far beyond ordinary endowments. M. Burty
says that he once saw Jacquemart at work on an etching fix)m
a highly decorated pistol in which a little figure occurred, and
asked how Jacquemart could see to draw the figure. * I don't
see him,* was the artist's answer, * but I feel him ; I have him
at the end of my point.* The plate is before me as I write, and
is a marvellous piece of minute work, such as nobody else ever
executed.

The minute truth attainable by the etching-needle in the
representation of objects has led to its employment for medical
purposes. Dr. Whittaker, the clinical demonstrator at the
Glasgow Infirmary, has found it very valuable for the illustration
of disease, since every touch on his plates is his own, and not
liable to alteration by some engraver destitute of pathological
knowledge. There would be a great field for the employ-
ment of etching in scientific illustration of the most precise
kind if men of science were careful to train themselves as
draughtsmen.*

* Whilst engaged in writing this chapter, I learn by a letter from
Staffordshire that my books on Etching have had an influence on the
manufacture of pottery there by leading to successful experiments in
etched decoration. The use of it for pathological illustration was also a
consequence of those books, so that, after all, perhaps these aesthetic
pursuits may turn out to be of some practical ^se in the world.

L ine-Engraving.

CHAPTER XXVI.

LINE-ENGRAVING,

THE expression ' Line- Engraving ' is used for engraving
with the burin, but this \s, one of those cases in which a
comprehensive expression is narrowed to a special use, as when
a Frenchman uses the word ' essence ' he means turpentine.
According to the strict sense of the words ' Une ' and ' engrav-
ing,' etching and woodcut have as fair claims to it as burin work
on steel, for etching is work in black line which is engraved by
acid, and woodcut is work in white line engraved with a burin.
Then, again, there can be no question about the claim of dry
point to be called line-engraving, for it is all in line, and every
line is cut in tnetal. I take notice of this because words have
such a power over our estimates of things. Most readers are
likely to imagine, when tliey see ' Line- Engraving ' placed con-
spicuously at the head of this chapter, that the art treated of in
it will be more linear than etching. The real difference is, that
in etching the line is free, whilst in line-engraving it is formal.

The etching-needW is held in the hand like a pencil or a
silver-point, and Js therefore an instrument which can be used
by any arrist accustomed to the ordinary tools of a draughts-
man. The burin is held like nothing else, like no other tool
ever invented ; the working end of it is held between finger
and thumb, and the impulsion is got by pushing against a buffer
with the lower part of the palm of the hand. The etching-
needle requires no appreciable force, and will turn in any direc-
tion at once; the burin requires con^AwaWie ^otcc:, w\&. -«^
only mm in curves. When the svtoiecV eJosoVa^-I tct^-it^
^9 -

450 The Graphic Arts. •

greater agility of line, the line-engraver uses the etching-needle
or the dry point.

Every kind of art has its own expressional quality, but there
is an essential distinction between those which are free and
those which are under some severe manual restriction. All the
graphic arts hitherto mentioned in this volume are free arts,
with the exceptions of fresco-painting, wood-engraving, and dry
point. Fresco is hampered by having to be done in patches,
wood-engraving by the use of the burin and the difl&culty of
correction, dry point is just a little hampered because a scratch-
ing point is not so free as one that glides over a sur£sice. But
we have not yet met with an art so fettered by the nature of its
own instrument as burin engraving on metal.

The absence of liberty is at the same time an evil and a good.
It puts all spontaneousness, all variety of inspiration, simply out
of the question from the first. You might as well tell an author
to compose his book with types, as order an artist to express
passing thoughts and caprices with a burin. An original artist
may use the burin for the expression of his own ideas, as D(irer
did, but the entire subject must be invented and determined
in all its details before he touches the copper. So much for
the evil side of the question. Spontaneous thought and senti-
ment cannot stir, and the revival or remembrance of thought
and sentiment which were once inspiration has to take their
place. On the other hand, it may be fairly said in favour of
line-engraving, that it is a mental discipline of a high kind when
the engraver has a worthy estimate of his profession. In the
first place, he must have the clearest possible understanding of
the picture which he has to interpret, or, in other words, he
must be, at least with reference to one class of art, a thoroughly
sound and complete critic. Again, it is not enough for an
engraver to have intermittent flashes of insight, like a man who
sparkles in conversation — he must keep his mind in the steady
brightness of that ideal electric lamp which modem invention
seeis. He must be able, a\, atv^ Xm^, \.o ^xwi \cen>s^ xsAa

Line- Engraving. 45 1

artistic sympathy with his original, as an actor or public reader
must think the thoughts of his author. All this is assuredly not
the same as the painter's or the etcher's state of tnind, but it is
a stale of very high discipline - — I had almost written of scholarly
discipline, so closely does it resemble the temper of the true
scholar who follows always the work of another, but follows it
with delicate and patient appreciation. He who has the true
nature of an engraver will live, ideally, with the painter of the
work before him, as the scholar Uves with Virgil or Dante.
The length of time he has to spend over it will be in no wise
irksome to him, for every hour passes in the presence of a com-
panion spirit. And this being so, conceive (if you can) the
wretched fate of a delicate- minded engraver who is set to in-
terpret vulgar work, or who is compelled to interpret noble work
by inadequate methods because they are rapid and cheap.

In the plates which have been engraved purposely for the
illustration of this chapter these evils have been carefully avoided.
Each of the pictures has been one that the engraver loved, and
he has been asked to interpret it exactly in accordance with his
own conception of his art, so that in these modem works the
reader is sure of good examples. The reproductions of engrav-
ings by dead masters are intended to show the movement of
the art from its early principles to modern principles, so that
the reader may see for himself how great a change has taken
place, and how completely the change is due to altered views
or feelings about the province and limits of engraving.

Most of my readers will be aware that between connoisseurs
and the general public there is a wider and more complete
divergence of taste in reference to engraving than there is about
most of the graphic arts, certainly a far wider divergence than
there is about painting either in oil or water-colour. The sort
of engraving which cormoisseure collect would never by any
chance be bought by ordinary English people of the well-to-do
classes for the adornment of their rooms, it '«oi\i.4. u-^ ^^«^
bought by studious persons, by the sotl ot pe.T?,o-os ^\\.t> 'ae.«i?>a.'«^

452 The Graphic Arts.

the Print-room at the British Museum or the Bibliothique
Nationale at Paris, and they would generally keep it in cabinets
or portfolios, and show it only to the few acquaintances whose
tastes were similar to their own. On the other hand, the gen-
eral public, the squires and clergy, the prosperous professional
men and tradesmen, who buy prints in large quantities fix>m- the
publishers of modem works, buy what connoisseurs in engraving
seldom care to purchase. Now and then it happens that a
modem print is of the kind which connoisseurs appreciate, and
then they admit it amongst their classics, but the brilliant mass
of modem production does not tempt them. There is of course
a reason for this ; there is a reason for everything in supply and
demand, and in this case the reason is that the popular taste in
graphic art is never really satisfied unless it gets texture, local
colour, and light-and-shade, whereas the taste of instracted
persons, whose powers of analysis and abstraction are greater,
is satisfied with a system of work, founded upon abstraction,
which gives form without local colour, without texture, and with
a sort of shading which has very little reference to nature. This
accounts for the popular indifference to the early classics of
engraving, and the indifference of connoisseurs to popular prints
may be accounted for very generally by the second-hand char-
acter of the work in such prints, because the engravers of them
have set methods which deprive their work of individuality.
The methods are often well adapted to their purpose, and yet
in spite of this they lack interest, because they have become
common and familiar.

The early engravers whose names are famous amongst col-
lectors appear to have considered that the object of engraving
was simply the expression of form, and the exhibition of an
especial kind of manual skill quite remote fi^om the rich handling
of accomplished painters. In consequence of these views ol
their art they developed certain styles of their own, exceedingly
abstract, which represent natural material only by one or two
of its quah'ties, such as oudme axA ^To\^c.>cvaxw. 'V^e^'Sxa^ twC

Line-Engraving. 453

visual synthesis of nature, no system of interpretation whicif
took tlie whole of the visible qualities together and gave the
sum of appearances, as the best modem painting does. As
early Italian painting was coloured drawing, so early Italian
engraving was shaded outline. The difference between such
engraving and the best modern work is not so mucb in quality
as in kind. The modem work includes so much more that
it is continually over-stepping the limits which confined its
predecessor.

It is not surprising if the early engravere attained skill within
the limits of an exceedingly narrow art. The early Italian works
which are now attributed to Baccio Baldini,* and which used
to be called ' The Playing Cards of Mantegna,' are amongst the
classics of primitive engraving. A good reproduction of one of
them, the ' Primo Mobile,' appeared in the Portfolio for May,
1877 ; and if the reader has the opportunity of referring to it,
or to the original, he will perceive thai the idea of iB execution
is derived from drawing in line and wash of the simplest descrip-
tion, the line being represented by a. burin line very nearly equal
in strength everywhere, by which all the forms are first carefully
mapped out, and the wash by a grey shade of rather close lines
with a good deal of cross-hatching. There is no local colour,
and there is no subordination or sacrifice of parts, all are treated
equally, as they are in heraldic engraving. So it is with the
other designs in the series of fifty from which this design is
taken, and this is one of the best. The lines of drapery in the

" Nobody really knows either who designed this series of engravings
or who executed them. It has been supposed thai the designs may have
been due to Botticelli, but there is no proof of this. It seems likely, how-
ever, that the original designs were of a more accomplished character,
technically, than the engravings, both because the pencil or pen is a much
easier instrument than the burin, and also because there is evidence of a
cultivated art-power in the designer which seems to go beyond the careful
but nnequal handiwork of the copsnst. M. Duplessis says that, itet v'>^\s5.
really known to be by Ealdini ate not by t.\it same, ^lotes.wi^.'aaB. *m-1-
tbese plates are more like Baldini's VrOtV thaiv a.Tq oftiw-

454 ^^ Graphic Arts.

^ Astrologia * are fine, but the shading is poor and inexperienced,
whilst the shading of the ground in that print is simply mechan-
ical. Even in the draperies themselves in some <rf these en-
gravings we see the struggle against technical difficulty. They
are sculpturesque in intention, but when you compare them
with Greek work in marble, the troublesome, recalcitrant nature
of the burin is at once q)parent ; it has not got pleasantly round
the comers, the angles are stiff, and the whole substance has
more the character of strong paper creased purposely into set
folds than of drapery falling into them of itself. It is a relief
to the artist when he gets to the engraving of pure ornament,
as in the serpentine stalk and leaf pattern which decorates the
foreground of the * Poesia.* But even if the workmanship of
these plates had been more perfect than it is, if it had been as
perfect work as Henriquel Dupont could turn out now, it would
still have been one of the narrowest specialities, and one of the
most remote from nature, in all the range of graphic art ; and
if the lovers of classical engraving succeeded in bringing the
work of the burin back to this primitive stage, it would be like
a reaction from the modem oil-picture back to the Etmscan
vase.

The principle of Mantegna was a combination of line and
shade which is often found in drawings. The subject is first
represented everywhere by organic line, and then diagonal shad-
ing is thrown over that where it seems to be most needed, but
not so as to overcome the organic line or give either complete
chiaroscuro or complete modelling. In this kind of engraving
the organic line includes all design of a decorative character,
such as ornaments and even the pattems of dresses, which are
strongly made out ; the shading gives projection (to some ex-
tent) and also relief, being darker in some parts than in others,
but the lines of the shading are never used, as they often are in
modem engraving, to indicate the direction of surfaces. Man-
tegna's plan was to arrange matters So that the shade might
interfere as little as possible with the drawing, and the diagonal

Line- Engraving. 455

line seemed the best means to this end. Professor Legros, in
recent times, has made great use of the same system. It has
been accurately described by Professor Colvin, as follows ; —

' The Italian engravers of the fifteenth century were trained in a
different technical practice from the Germans. They learned to
draw with the burin upon copper exactly as they were accustomed
to draw with the brush or silver-point upon paper — that is, to get
the outline pure, clear, and firm, and then to shade with simple
straight lines, slanting downward either from right to left or from
left to right. This is a method inapt to express the full relief and
roundness of objects in nature, and the Italian engravers generally
content themselves with expressing objects in a kind of partial or
low relief. It cannot be denied, however, that some of the legiti-
mate effects of engraving are thus lost. And that the Italians
themselves by-and-by felt the poverty of their system is proved by
the fact that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, they turned
eagerly to the works of Albert Diirer, and imitated from him the
richer German system.'

The reader wiii find it convenient to remember the early
Italian school of engraving as a school of outline, which in all
the graphic arts is the beginning of culture. If the oudines are
beautiful and full of exquisite modulation, then the art is in a
beautiful childhood, promising other kinds of beauty in its ma-
turity, and more particularly the beauties of modelling and com-
position. Experience does not seem to prove that perfection
of outline naturally initiates a progress towards power of effect
in light and shade or colour. Its full results are to be seen
rather in the paintings of Lionardo than in the etchings of
Rembrandt, or the delicate modem engravings after Turner.

In early northern engraving outline exists, but not often for
its grace or beauty, only for definition, and the really fundamen-
tal idea is not beauty but veracity of detail.

This notion of veracity had taken possession of Albert Diirer's
mind to the entire exclusion of everything like visual synthesis.
His conception of a fine engraving was an engraving enriched

45^ The Graphic Arts.

with the representations of many things, and in the great works
on which his fame rests chiefly he introduced objects in ex-
traordinary abundance ; the more there were of them the better,
an idea quite foreign to the more classical Italian genius. Now
there are two ways of dealing with multitude in the graphic arts.
Either the crowd of things may be represented as if they were
seen separately or they may be grouped and as it were fused
together in perfect subordination to a simple pictorial scheme.
When they are represented independently they always appear
far more numerous and obtrusive than when in subordination,
and this is why there seems to be such quantity in DUrer's
engravings. If the details were kept in their places we should
hardly think about them, but that was not the engraver's inten-
tion. He wanted us to see everything, and how everything was
made, fh>m the buckle on a bridle to the beam in the ceiling of
a room. Of all engravers he is the most explanatory, the man
who most clearly sees the tangible nature of objects (not their
appearance) , and who has the most perfect sympathy with all
constructive trades and occupations. Joiners could make fur-
niture from his engravings,* saddlers and armourers could carry
out his inventions in steel and leather. I believe that the only
mistake he ever made in drawing an object that he could handle
was that odd blunder in the plane in the * Melencolia,' which
could never take off one shaving, as the cutter is put in it the
wrong way, and would glide over the wood without biting. The
setting of the hand-saw in the same plate, which looks careless,
is scrupulously exact, as Continental joiners often set their saws
very irregularly on purpose to make them cut better. It is really
a great satisfaction to meet with an artist who understands com-
mon things, so many are unable to see them. There have been
great celebrities in the fine arts who could not draw a boat, or a
wheelbarrow, or a fiddle.

It requires a very careful use of language to describJe Dlirer's
employment of shading. He was exceedingly skilful with the

* This has actually been done in the present century.

Line- Engraving. 457

burin, and could make the lines go in any direction which the
nature of the instrument allows, in which he greatly excelled all
the early Italians ; but he did not understand the laws of effect,
and all his shading is but clearer and clearer explanation. He
would not leave a sphere in the shape of a disc, like the en-
graver of the ' Primo Mobile,' but explained its spherical nature
patiently, as we see in the 'Melencolia,' and on the sawn stump
of a tree with a skull on it in the left comer of The Knight,
Death, and the Devil," the lines express the concentric rings of
growth. It would be a waste of space to go into any detailed
criticism of Diirer's chiaroscuro. There is plenty of shading
in his work, the object of it being not chiaroscuro but relief;
the dark shades on the rocks in the plate just mentioned are
not the shades of a landscape-painter but those of an object-
engraver who wants to show his armour and other things to the
best advantage.* Effects of shade in DUrer's engravings are
soiTctimes begun, but never consistently carried out ; they are
fragmentary and contradictory, as in that well-known example
the ' Melencolia,' He paid more attention to texture, but the
severe method of pure burin engraving is not favourable to all
textures ; it is highly favourable to some, especially to armour
and neatiy planed wood, but extremely unfavourable to all rich
and soft things, such as velvet and felt, and to rugged pictu-
resque things, such as the bark of trees, DUrer's treatment

■ The real principle of ihis kind of shading will 1je understood by a
reference 10 one of fiiienne Deliune's combats, where it is carried out
consistently with a decorative idea and quite without any intention of
imitating natnte. Dclaune was a French medal engraver, who lived and
died in the sixteenth century, and engraved many plates after he was forty
years old. To relieve the men and horses in his combats he made the
backgrounds as nearly a flat black as a burin engraver on metal could
attain. The field on which ihe combats look place was a sort of white
floor on which the figures cast their shadows. It you follow up this idea
of relieving figures l>y a dark background it wi'l take you to antique vase*
and to ancient Egyptian painting. It Is one of the very oldest devices in
the graphic arts, and b its origin it has very little to do with nature.

458 The Graphic Arts.

of hair resembled that which prevailed amongst the painters of
his time. His burin followed every curl^ as in the wonderfUl
beard of the Elector Frederick of Saxony ; but if you turn from
that portrait to Rajon*s * Darwin,* after Ouless, you will perceive
the superiority of modem methods so far as texture is con-
cerned. Many of the strongest points in Dtirer's workmanship
are to be seen in perfection in his heraldic engraving, such as
the helmet and lambrequin in the plate with the 'Lion and
Cock.* The helmet is one of the most perfect bits of work in
existence, it shows the brilliant clearness of Diirer's conception
when he had to do with a tangible object. See how all the
inequalities in the metal are studied and enjoyed, how sharply
all the edges are defined, and how gladly the artist has seized
upon the dark shade inside the helmet to give contrast and
relief. In the lambrequin he found a capital opportunity for
one thing which always especially delighted him, the irregularity
and minutely curving edge of some thin pliant material.

Lucas Van Leyden, Diirer's contemporary, has a great repu-
tation as an engraver, which is due partiy to his intelligence and
partly to his skilful management of the burin, but he was not
nearly so good a draughtsman as Diirer, nor so strong in vivid
representation. There have been so many artists in the world
who were clever with their hands without any perceptible traces
of intellect, that one has a special respect for Lucas Van Leyden
on this account. In the ' Temptation * his Christ is intelligent
(this is rare in sacred art), and Satan is not a mere beast, but a
being from whom the most insinuating suggestions might come
appropriately. He is not Goethe's Mephistopheles, the time
was not yet ripe for that conception, but he is crafly and old,
far more dangerous than the vulgar notion of an evil spirit. If
you look to the execution, you will see in the plainest maimer
all the process of early engraving with the burin. You will see
what a very simple, honest process it was, and how it compelled
everything in nature to conform to its own convenience. Local
colour is altogether omitted •, ^Yvada Ss bSlo^^^^XwX ^ \!Olqk« for

L ine-Engra ving. 459

piojection and relief than for anything in the nature of real
chiaroscuro. As for texture and picturesque detail, the rock
has just the same texture as the drapery, and so has the slope
of land. The means used consist simply of the burin line in
gende curves, ahke over rock, drapery, flesh, ending with dots
to pass away more easily into the Ughts, which are white every-
where. Cross-hatching is admitted, but the reader will please
to remember that this is not a difficulty in metal engraving as
it is in woodcut. When the lines are hollowed with the burin
instead of being left, they are as easily crossed as not. The
distant landscape is almost in pure oudine, and so little did the
artist try for delicate tones that the hills behind the milking
scene are in outline and nothing else.

Here let us pause a htde before going forward towards the
modern schools of engraving. If the reader lakes any serious
interest in these matters, and has any real desire to think justly
about his own contemporaries, he ought to take into considera-
tion the very different conditions under which the old engravers
did their work. Nobody either amongst their neighbours or
their successors ever expected the old engravere to give good
drawing, truthful texture, and accurate effects of chiaroscuro all
in the same plate, yet these qualities are expected every day, in
combination, from the modems. Chiaroscuro the old engravers
never gave, because they worked in pure ignorance of its laws.
Texture they gave when it suited them, and when it did not
suit them they either gave it partially or else omitted it alto-
gether. They were strongest in drawing ; in their conception
engraving was a delicate sort of linear drawing ; but even
here they are treated with great indulgence. Bad proportions
and erroneous lines are by no means rare in famous old engrav-
ings, but they are gently passed over by modem critics in order
not to offend collectors.* Lastly, the old engravers were strong

• The schnol of Fontainebleau conlains many examples of very deli-
cate engraving united to very bad drawing. The lines a\e ■m'W a.^i>^w&.
with the burin, and yet iji the same plate ttie \i\n\is. NtiW D^-tei\>it e,wi-i<S'-i

460 The Graphic Arts.

in the use of the burin, but even this is too much to say of the
primitive Italians ; and the northern artists, who gave their time
almost exclusively to the acquisition of this manual skill, might
fairly be expected to attain mastery. If our contemporaries
were allowed to do work of the same abstract kind, their skill
in line would be more visibly exhibited.

Pure line-engraving came to its perfection in the very best
plates of Marc Antonio, but few engravers have been more
unequal or more unpromising in their earlier work. Bartsch
praises one print which he catalogues under the number 199,
and calls *a beautiful engraving executed with the greatest
pains.' The subject is a female figure partially draped and
reclining on a bed. One arm is raised, and it is shaded with
slanting lines with dots after them, a most primitive piece of
coarse engraving, expressing no form of any kind. The prog-
ress from such work as that to the arms of the Dido and the
Lucretia seems beyond the wildest hopes of youth. Some plates
by Marc Antonio are quite remarkable for the extreme badness
of their backgrounds ; there is the piece of the Five Saints, for
example (Bartsch, 113), which displays one of the very worst
skies ever attempted — the clouds like sheep's brains, and the
sky in short, regular horizontal lines, badly joined together and
deeper at the joinings. After German engraving, one is struck
by the total absence of picturesque taste and observation in
Marc Antonio's coarser backgrounds, as, for example, in that
to the Virgin with the long thigh (Bartsch, 57). The material
is broken enough — you have a broken staircase and a broken
column, but they are not in the least picturesque, and there are
clouds above the buildings with the consistency of puddings.
In the Virgin with the Staircase (Bartsch, 45) there occurs a
curious test of elementary knowledge in a column and a pilaster.
The column is so situated that in nature it would receive a
strong reflection, but where the reflection ought to be the

out of proportion, as when a delicate little head is joined to the same
body with an enormous arm.

Line'Engraving. 461

engraver "blackens it ; as for the pilaster, the engraver shows
it in retiring perspective, yet shades it as if it were seen in
front. In the Virgin with the Cradle, the shading about the
chimney contradicts the perspective also, and yet this is one
of the artist's more successful works. On the other hand, there
are very fine things in some of his plates, such as the delicately
engraved figure of the naked soldier who has just drawn his
sword in the ' Massacre of the Innocents,' and other engravings
are fine throughout, like that astonishing portrait of Aretino.

These being amongst the high classics of the art of line-
engraving it may be well to consider the principles on which they
are done, for if we understand these we shall understand the
art as it was practised in the days of Raphael. In the first
place everything is subordinated to the convenience of the man
who holds the burin. He does what can be done naturally
with the instrument, he neglects everything which would em-
barrass him. It would not be quite accurate to say that local
colour and effect are entirely omitted, but they are very nearly
omitted, the little that remains of them being used simply to
relieve the forms. There ,is no tone. The distances are rep-
resented very nearly in pure outline, so that the darks in the
figures may not be in any degree overpowered. The distance
in the ' Dido ' is a good example of this, and yet above this
distance, in the right-hand corner, there is a bit of very dark
sky merely to furnish that comer of the plate, without reference
to nature. The boldly artificial character of classical engraving
may be understood from the flames in the ' Dido,' which are
exactly adapted to the work of the burin, but so remote from
nature that they look like pieces of cardboard cut out in tongue-
like shapes and set up one against another. Again, observe
that these large flames cast no light, that the ground b very
dark near them, and the draperies as dark as possible on that
side. On examining those draperies themselves the reader will
be struck by their very vigorous relief, but this vigour is possible
only in a school of engraving which makes natural truth entirely

462 The Graphic Arts.

subordinate to artistic purposes. Is the drapery white or black ?
It cannot be grey because the lights are all white ; for the same
reason it cannot be black, as black does not become white in
light; and, finaUy, it cannot be white, because white is not
black in shade, as this is. So far as shading is concerned, the
drapery is simply an impossibility, but this false shading gives
startling relief to its beautiful folds. In the * Lucretia * the relief
is got in another way. The drapery itself is more moderately
shaded, but on its light side it is relieved against a black wall
which goes up in the form of an arch over Lucretia's head.
That wall and arch could not be black in nature, but it was
very desirable to make them so in the engraving, which would
have been far less brilliant if they had been only grey. The
truth is that to get rehef the classical engravers would at any
time go from white to black even in the same limb, and they
cared nothing about any natural laws except those of form.
Their art stands on its own basis^ and of all the graphic arts it
is the most independent of nature.

It is so difficult to speak with precisely accurate justice of
artists whose merits and defects are inextricably mingled to-
gether, that I hardly know how to convey to the reader an
opinion about the Little Masters worth his attention without
going more into detail than the scope of this chapter permits.
They were generally at the same time very skilful engravers,
manually, and poor draughtsmen, and yet there are lucky works
of theirs, especially portraits, in which the drawing seems as
good as it possibly could be in that style of art. The vices of
drawing to be found in the Little Masters are either glaring
defects of proportion, as in Henry Aldegrever, or a want of
observation of individual form, as in Hans Sebald Beham, who
generally gave all his men the same thick legs and heavy necks,
without distinguishing them much except by their faces, besides
which the legs themselves are not really studied, but engraved
in a set manner once learned and not afterwards forgotten.
Still, there is a great deal of interesting matter in the small

Line- Engraving. 463

plates of the Little Masters, and if the reader desires an intro-
duction to them he has only to get Mr. VV. B. Scott's able book
on the subject. They kept up to a much better general level
of workmanship than many more famous artists. Their burin
work is clear and sound, their compositions full, curious, aod
attractive. ' A selection,' says Mr. Scott, ' from the works of
Schongauer and the few others who claim to be what the Ital-
ians call Quattrocentisti, and those that foUowed impetuously
in their steps, Dtlrer and the Little Masters, a noble band of
free-minded men and accomplished artists, who pass out of
sight one by one about 1550, is a source of endless enjoyment.
Smallness itself has the charm of refinement, and when asso-
ciated with largeness of art gives us die noblest pleasure ; their
works have the freshness of the early days of modem civilisa-
tion ; they are like boyhood in life, and possess the daringness
of boyhood. Such a collection, I would venture to say, con-
taining witliin itself the choicest flower and fruit of German art,
affords to the intelligent the greatest fund of enjoyment of any
possession within the region of taste.' I quote this to show the
strong interest which the Little Masters have sometimes inspired.
My own feeling about them is less enthusiastic, but I believe
that the study of them might have a good influence on mod-
ern book illustration, because of that association of smaQness of
size ' with largeness of art ' which alone can make book illus-
trations at the same time convenient to die reader and seriously
interesting to a lover of the fine arts. As an example, I may
mention Hans Sebald Behara's series of the Prodigal Son. Each
engraving measures about j,\ in. by zj in,, the smallest consid-
erably less, and yet in this confined space Beham found means
of putting compositions of five or six figures engraved in a large
manner. In the little subject, i\ in. by \\ in., illustrating the
text Dissipavit substatiHam suant -vivendo luxuriose, the women
are in stately costumes with folds and falling of drapery quite
carefully studied, the background is beautifully filled with trees
and plants, and the table is set ready. In the Pater da Mihi

464 The Graphic Arts.

and the FUius metis mortuus erat, room is found in the back-
ground for a stately representation of the paternal house.*
Trees and landscape distances are finely introduced ; of course,
these are not modem naturalist landscapes, but they compose ^
well with the figures. We have spoken of painted tapestry in
this volume ; well, if these tiny prints of the Prodigal Son were
copied on large tapestries in their lines, and then coloured in a
suitably conventional manner, they would bear the enlargement
and look at the same time sufficiently furnished and dignified
enough for such an employment. There are few small compo-
sitions made for modem book illustration of which anything
like this could be said.

Nobody can properly understand the growth of modem en-
graving without taking into consideration the influence exer-
cised on the development of the art by the engravers who
worked under the direction of Rubens. It is a class of art
intermediary between Lucas Van Leyden and our own con-
temporaries ; it is a kind of engraving in which old principles
are abandoned and modem principles not yet wholly adopted.
The old principles of keeping the lines brilliandy clear, and of
looking to pure white paper for a contrast to add to the v^ue
of shades, were abandoned by the interpreters of Rubens.
They hid their lines under laborious cross-hatching, and only
reserved white for their lights, not for spaces of calm and quiet.
On the other hand, they had not yet adopted the modem
principle of translating a picture with all its lights and darks.
Rubens did not encourage them to do this. His way of dealing
with his engravers was founded upon a conception of engraving
quite different firom that of a modem Englishman. When a

* As an example of the strange uncertainty in drawing which charac-
terises these masters, I may say that, although the paternal house is
drawn fairly well in most respects, there is a most troublesome mistake
in the perspective of the stairs in the Filius mms, one of those mistakes
which torture anyone who knows : the stairs are drawn to one horizon,
sind the battlements, windows, &c., lo axvo^ex.

Line- Engraving. 465

modern Englishman gives a commission to an engraver he
expects him to copy the picture as accurately as possible in its
lights and darks, and in its texture also. Rubens expected
nothing of the kind. He looked upon engraving as an art
entirely distinct from painting, and was quite willing to aban-
don many of the most interesting qualities of his own an when
men like Vorsterman, Pontius, Boetius a Bolswert, and Schelte
a Bolswert, translated it into theirs. He even helped them by
making drawings bereft of his pictorial richness and simplified
for their use, sometimes even showing them the best direction
for their lines. The engravers did not imitate the quality of
the master's painting at all, nor did they render its local colour
except imperfectly or occasionally. Their system translated
things mostly into grey, with white hghts. They made great
progress in modelling, and by making their lines go m the
directions most expressive of form they came to interpret the
naked figure with a roundness, and drapery with a fullness of
thick folds, greatly surpassing previous efforts, and yet they did
not give texture in the modern sense. In one plate before me,
by Schelte a Bolswert, a stone seat and a piece of drapery on
it are shaded exactly in the same manner, and with the same
quality of cross-hatching ; in a landscape by the same engraver
the upper part of the sky and the lowest part of the foreground
are precisely of the same texture. It is this want of sufficient
variety in the representation of different qualities which makes
engraving of that class less interesting to us than its considerable
merits would seem to demand. I confess honesdy that the
engravings of the Rubens school have very little attraction for
me, beyond a purely historical interest. They are very impor-
tant in the history of art, but the engravers' work does not stand
firmly on its own basis, like that of Albert DUrer or Lucas Van
Leyden, nor does it give the touch and style of Rubens. I
would rather have an old piece of original work in engraving,
done quite without reference to painun^, ot eSs«. ^ -wissfiicv^
engraving coming nearer lo the quaivWes o^ a. v^cXn^*:. ^. ^'^^^

466 The Graphic Arts,

the classic economy of labour in such a piece as Marc Antonio's
' Dido,* in which there is no weariness and every line tells on
the white paper; but the engravers of Rubens throw in lines
by thousands, carefully and laboriously engraved, yet not giving
true tone after all, or anything like it, whilst the strong lines
themselves are often destructive of interesting character and
detail.

As an example of the best Dutch engraving in the seventeenth
century, the reader can have nothing better than the portrait
of Gellius de Bouma, by Cornelius Visscher. Our reproduction
gives only the head and beard, quite enough to show the force
of the artist. There is extraordinary vivacity in the engraving
of the face — indeed, it is as lively as an etching, and beauti-
fully modelled besides. I never can reconcile myself to those
formal engravers* backgrounds which mean nothing except a
certain tone of grey, and yet are not sufficiently neutral in treat-
ment to escape attention. The simple old way of treating a
background that meant nothing was to make a tone by straight
horizontal lines, as Marc Antonio did behind Aretino, and Bar-
tholomew Beham behind the Emperor Charles V. If a darker
place was wanted for a shadow, it was got by crossing the lines
once, and that sufficed. Now see the effect of elaboration
coming in ! On your left the lines are all crossed at right
angles, and to your right they are not only crossed in this way,
but traversed by diagonal lines again. Nor is this all. Not satis-
fied with this, the engraver has gone over the whole background
with innumerable little separate burin touches about a twentieth
of an inch long, the total result being greatly inferior to the old-
fashioned simple line. The shading of the dress introduces a
modem kind of skill in the use of thick lines carefully modu-
lated in direction with a narrow white space between them.
Now, those lines were certainly done in the modem way by
what is called re-entering, that is, by putting the burin into the
same line over and over again, and there are places where an
extra thickening of the line serves as shade. Again, there are

Line-Engraving. 467

places where shade is managed by the careful insertion of a thin
line between two thick ones, another quite modem device, which
the early engravers never thought of. Here, then, we may say
that modern engraving has begun. One good old custom, how-
ever, is still preserved; The engraving is not done from an-
other man's work ; it is Visscher's own.

Visscher's great French contemporary, Robert Nanteuil, also
drew from nature, and often engraved his own drawings. M,
Duplessis even goes so far as to say that the greater part of
Nanteuil's works were engraved from his own designs, some
of which have been preserved, and are at the same time very
careful in manner and full of vivacity and character. He began
life as a pastel- painter, and only thought of engraving, for the
purpose of reproducing his own works, when he had made him-
self a position as an artisL Afterwards he became immensely
successful as an engraver, which had the bad effect of inducing
him to employ assistants j but M, Deiaborde tells us that there
is not a single plate bearing his name in which the head is not
his own work. The work of the assistants would be in the
backgrounds and accessories. The portrait of the Marquis of
Castelnau shows the kind of background which had come to
be generally accepted in the seventeenth century, and which
I cannot heip considering a misfortune to the art, I greatly
prefer the simple horizontal line employed for the portrait of
Peter de Maridat.* It may be said that backgrounds are not
of much importance, but unfortunately in the fine arts every-
thing is of importance. A mechanical background gives an
inartistic look to a whole plate, as we see in the spoiling of Van-
dyke's etchings by the engravers. They did not efface his oWn
work, yet they spoiled it In the ' Marquis de Castelnau ' the
face is admirably engraved ; it is at the same time very sober
m manner and very animated in expression. The armour is
fine, too, very simple in workmanship, and very powerful. I

■ Reprnduced in the ' Hislory of Engraving' by Duplessis.

468 The Graphic Arts.

cannot say so much for the wig, which is poor in texture and
flat, ahnost as if it were a part of the background. Robert
Nanteuil engraved more than thirty portraits the size of life, and
nearly two hundred smaller ones. The reader may study his
' Marquis de Pomponne ' as an example of the large portraits.
The face is most carefully modelled throughout, and of fine
quality, the dress coarsely engraved for contrast, except the
lace. In the small portrait of *La Mothe le Vayer,' Nanteuil
reached an ideal perfection of intelligent delicacy in the face,
certainly- one of the most completely satisfactory pieces of work
ever executed.

Pierre Drevet, bom in the latter half of the seventeenth century,
leads on into the eighteenth. In the history of portrait engrav-
ing he succeeds to Nanteuil ; and in his turn was succeeded by
his son, another Pierre, who left a wonderful portrait of Bossuet
from Rigaud*s picture. It is aU pure burin work, yet so supple
in handling and so various in texture that we do not in the least
feel the indocile nature of the instrument, and there is hardly any
of that hard and strong work-without-meaning which engravers
often employ to make other parts look interesting. The face is
as delicate and lively as possible, fully keeping its place in spite
of the dangerous splendour and perfection of the accessories ;
which are carried out to the minutest detail with the most
extreme clearness, even down to the marvellous lace with its
pale light and shade, the litter of books on the floor and table,
the inkstand, &c., &c. The only bad bit of work is in the cloud
in the lower glimpse of sky, with its unfortunate crossings of
line producing a false effiect of their own. Pierre Imbert Drevet
engraved this masterpiece at the age of twenty-six, and it is said
that at thirteen he had already learned his profession. The
Bossuet fully expresses that ideal of portrait engraving which
prevailed in the eighteenth century. It is beyond all com-
parison more accomplished, in the technical sense, than the
work of the early masters, even including Dlirer ; for though it
abounds in detail, the details are all executed with reference

Line-Evgraving. 4G9

to each other, whilst in Ddrer they are executed independently.
A cousin of this engraver, Claude Drevet, was his pupil and
successor, and inherited some of his qualities. One of his most
famous plates, Uke his cousin's Bossuet, was from a picture
by Rigaud, and the subject was a prelate, Mgr, de Vintimille,
Archbishop of Paris. Roman Catholic prelates were delightful
models for artists like Rigaud and the Drevets because they
wore such elaborate costumes. To show the amount of highly-
skilled labour which engravers of that class were prepared to
bestow on a piece of costume, I have had the lace on Arch-
bishop de Vintimiile's knee and sleeve reproduced on its own
scale. In these days photography has accustomed us so much
to detail that we may easily under-esrimate such work as this ;
but let us remember that it was all fairly drawn by a man's
hand, and with the most difficult of all instruments. In spite
of its extreme elaboration it only holds its right place in the
picture. Here the study of quality and texture has come to full
maturity ; this is not an absuaction substituted for lace, it is a
true representation of the qualities belonging to the material,
of the manner in which it takes its folds, of its combined
stiffness and pliability, of its endless detail of design thrown into
unforeseen combinations by perspective.

If this were a history of engraving, it would be necessary to
give an accurate account of the best work done in Great Britain
in the age of Strange and Woollett. Strange learned his art in
France, taking up the tradition of French engraving at the point
which it had then attained, and making those clear distinctions
between different materials which had then come into vogue.
I am not able to like the regular curves with a series of dots
between them which he adopted for flesh, though at a little
distance the unpleasant effect disappears. His Charles I. with
the Marqitis of Hamilton and a Page, after Vandyke, is cer-
tainly one of the finest engravings of the eighteenth century;
and his Ckihirm of Charles Z may be taken as a good example
of the extremely abTs way in which he varied his work according

470 The Graphic Arts.

to the occasion. It would require a special investigation to
ascertain exactly how much the best landscape-engraving of
the nineteenth century owes to Woollett. Perhaps it may
owe much to him, perhaps if he had never worked from
Claude and Wilson we should not have had the wonderful
modem engravings after Turner. He took special pains to
separate distances by distinctions of tone, and this has been
carried much farther since his time; but the only landscape-
engraving with the burin which gives me any real satis&ction
belongs to our own century. The case is quite different with
portrait ; in that department of art the eighteenth century did
not make progress towards excellence, as in landscape, but
splendidly attained it.

Claude was a simple artist to engrave in comparison with the
more advanced landscape-painters of the nineteenth century,
and so was Wilson. They both arranged their pictures on the
principle of well-separated distances, a principle much more
convenient for the engraver of tones than the modem one of
subtle passages from light to dark and dark to light occurring
anywhere. The principle of separation naturally precedes the
other both in painting and engraving, and I have no doubt
that landscape-engraving in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries was going forward by a right and natural progress
towards its final development in the nineteenth, but the art
in its early stages is wanting in certain qualities which, to
any one who appreciates modem landscape-painting, seem
essential.

One of the characteristics of the nineteenth century has been
the development of book-illustration, a department of engraving
for which the way had been prepared long before by the practice
of the Little Masters and by the small works of the great en-
gravers ; yet it was reserved for our own century to pursue art
in little to its ultimate results. Jean Michel Moreau, who was
bom in Paris in 1741, and died there in 1814, had so much
vivacity and fecundity of mveiv\.\OTi >i5ciaX. >ftfc vcN^xAad Caster than

Liiie-Engraviiig. 471

he cxjuld engrave, and employed many other artists ;* but when
he engraved his designs with his own hands he did so with very
high finish, I mean thai he engraved fine lines drawn with great
skill very near together, and representing both substances and
tones with a distinctness unknown to the early masters. The
final development of this tendency to finish for its own sake
was reached by Paolo Mercurj, a native of Rome, who went to
Paris in 1830 and stayed there about sixteen years. The per-
fection of manual workmanship attained by Mercurj in his most
laboured work was one of those extreme limits which are reached
in the technical qualities of the fine arts by men of special
organization, who happen to be bom just when an art is lending
to a kind of perfection which they alone are naturally qualified
to reach. To prevent a mistake let me say frankly that the
extraordinary accomplishment of Mercurj is to me much more
a subject of historical curiosity than of aesthetic pleasure ; but
there the work is — an unequalled marvel in its own kind, in
which every detail is elaborated with inconceivable accuracy,
whilst tone and texture are as carefully observed as detail.
The photogravure from his Sainte Amelia looks exactly like a
photographic reduction fi'om a large engraving ; but it is not
reduced at all, every one of the Unes in it was actually wrought
by Mercurj with his burin on that scale, and in still greater per-
fection. Such work is quite beyond ordinary human power.
We might as well try to make the threads of the gossamer spider,
and stretch them by millions on the dewy autumn fields, as to
hollow the tiny, the almost invisible trenches in the copper
whereof Mercuij composed his shades.

Contemporary line engraving, of a more robust character,
may be understood fi-om the ' St. Helena ' of Paul Veronese,
engraved by Mr. Lumb Stocks. The technical history of such
a plate is as follows ; — The engraver begins by making a careful

■ This lively productiveness may have been inherited from Moreau by
his grandson, Horace Vcrnet, though applied h^ VtrnW. \ci ^■-ii'itisa lA.
quite a different character.

472 The Graphic Arts.

reduction of the picture in lead-pencil oudine on paper, and
this is transferred by the pressure of a printer's rolling-press to
an etching-ground already laid upon the steel plate. The lead
of the outline, when it adheres to the black etching-ground,
shows itself as a silvery grey, and the engraver carefully corrects
it with the etching-needle ; besides which he fills in with lines
and dots such parts of the flesh tints as may seem to come
within the possibilities of work at that early stage. The next
business is to etch the principal forms of the hair, and of any
drapery which is to have rather a rough or picturesque char-
acter, and the engraver introduces a few guiding lines in the
other drapery in the shadows, so as to give some notion of the
general arrangement of shade. These lines being sufficiently
bitten (not to any great depth), the engraver begins to wcHrk
lightly with the burin, laying in the flowing lines of drapery by
following the guidance of the main lines already etched ; and
afterwards, these same burin lines are gone into repeatedly with
the burin to get down to the requisite depth. They are also
deepened by the process of rebiting, as in pure etching ; but
when an engraver rebites he is generally careful to retouch after-
wards with the burin, unless he wants a rugged or picturesque
effect. In the * St. Helena ' the hand-ruler was employed in
the sky and architecture, and the lines drawn with the etching-
point, but not crossed until the first lines had been bitten in,
after which the plate was cleaned and regrounded, when the
cross lines were added. The progress of a plate in the en-
graver's hands is extremely deliberate, and aided by firequent
proof-taking to enable him to judge exactly of its condition.
The gradual changes in it are a constant darkening, except
when the burnisher is used, which is not often. Each proof is
a fresh starting-point, until the last, which is the end of the
journey.

I hope the reader fully understands that this complete art of
line-engraving cannot possibly, in the nature of things, have that
briUiant appearance which strikes us in the younger art of Lucas

Linc-Engraving. 473

Van Leyden or Marc Antonio, That was obtained by the
opposition of white spaces with strong blacks, or decided darks,
truth of tone being sacrificed in both, either from intention or
inabihty. The modem engraver on steel shades almost aa com-
pletely as a painter, and the consequence is that he has seldom
the resource of pure whites or very intense blacks. In a paint-
ing, the comparative dulness of the intermediate tones is so
much enlivened by hue that we hardly perceive it ; in an en-
graving, they have to be rendered by different shades of grey,
and the only way to enhven these is by a learned, but not
obtrusive, variety in the use of the burin. The unrestrained
and excessive desire for this variety has led to some of the very
worst evils in engraving, evils which have made some painters
condemn the art altogether as remote from nature, and without
any genuine feeling. The great success of etching, in our time,
has been due, in part, to a weariness caused by the artifices of
the line-engravers.

The most decided of all the varieties to be obtained with the
burin is the difference between lines and dots. On analysing
early work the reader will often find that where the line comes
near the light it breaks away in dots, and there is a good deal
of dotting in modem hne-engraving also, except when there
is a very decided resolution to do without it. When the art
of dotting is carried to perfection, and exclusively employed in
some portion of the work, it is called stipple. It is convenient
for the representation of fiesh, which it imitates more closely in
quaUty than Imear shading can, but on condition of being fine in
texture, as coarse stipple always looks like an eruption. All the
kinds of engraving depend for the appearance of perfection
which they possess on the weakness of human vision ; but stipple
even more than line, as coarse dots are certainly more intolerable
than coarse lines. The beautiful httle portraits of distinguished
men, done by C. H. Jeens, seem nature itself at a distance of
eighteen inches, the texture is so like flesh, but if you examine
them too closely the charm is broken ; and if you take a strong

474 ^^ Graphic Arts*

magnifier, you perceive that the dots are much larger and less
numerous than you thought, and that they do not correspond
to anything on a healthy human face. One of the most perfect
portraits Jeens ever did was that of Sir George Airy, all in pale
tones, wonderfully true, with the whitening hair and whisker
perfectly relieved, just as they would be in a painting ; and the
eyes bright in a quiet shade. The modelling of a human face
can hardly go beyond that on so small a scale of work ; evexy
plane of it is thoroughly studied and expressed. Take the
magnifier, and you wonder how such a system of regulated spots
can produce such well-sustained tones, and such sound mod-
elling. The portrait of Sir William Thomson is more powerful,
having a strong gradation from the upper part of the forehead
downwards, with darker hair and beard. Here the spots of the
stipple are visible to the naked eye, yet so beautifully are they
ordered that they do not offend — under the magnifier, the
curving ranks of them look like tattooing. The thing done is
one thing, the effect of it upon the eye is another. Who would
suppose that hair could ever be properly represented by a series
of dots? Sir Charles Lyell's white hair and whiskers are aB
translated by dots, which under the magnifier look like strings
of beads. Seen as the engraver intended, the dots, themselves
invisible, produce an effect of softness on the eye, being exactly
in dark what an unresolved nebula is in light. In the excellent
likeness of Mr. Macmillan, the eminent publisher, all is in stip-
ple, except the dress and the background, which Jeens usually
engraved in line. He often carried line and stipple together
in his treatment of hair, as in the portraits of Huxley, Thomson, ♦
and Agassiz.

Mr. Holl's method of engraving is as follows : He begins
with etching the background in loose, broken line, and the
draperies in stipple and line, all outlines and forms being marked
in at this early stage of the process and slightly bitten. He
then improves with the graver and re-bites, and after that for
some time the plate passes through alternatives of added finish

' In th#> 1Ji

Line-Engraving. 475

In the lights and increased depth in the shades to accompany
them. At first the lights are too bright, and as soon as they are
lowered, by Ijeing worked upon, the shadows in their turn be-
come too weak, relatively, and have to be deepened ; then the
lights are worked upon again, and so on, till the whole plate
gets down safely to the intended depth of tone.* Faces are
done in stipple almost entirely in Mr. Roll's practice. The
burin used for hne-engraving is curved upwards towards the
point Uke a curved gouge ; that used for stipple is curved down-
wards to the point Uke a scimitar. By using a magnifier you
can see exactly how each spot has been cut out.

An achievement in engraving which belongs exclusively to
the nineteenth century is that of truthful and delicate tone-
engraving in landscape. Early German engraving gave an ab-
stract of landscape form often curious, interesting, and, in its
way, observant, especially in the placing of quaint cities amongst
mountains or trees ; early Italian engraving translated such
landscape as it recognised into pale outline, with a litde cautious
filling up in the distances and strong oppositions of unnatural
light and dark in foregrounds ; engraving of the middle period
— the age of Rubens — translated landscape coarsely by strong
lines and lozenges ; engraving of the eighteenth century at-
tempted the separation of a few simple tones ; but only in the
nineteenth — only during the lifetime of the oldest people we
know — has landscape ever been engraved with that delicate
truth of tone which is necessary to its complete expression.
You may, of course, sketch landscape nobly with pen and ink,
as Titian did, or you may etch it with a good selection of
tones, like the best etchers of the present day ; but although

• This gradual method of working down to the datks is very generally
followed by engravers, but not universally. I am lold [hat some, includ-
ing Doo, have preferred the more hazardous system of finishing one part
of the plate at once. Without presuming to criticise an artist about his
method, when the result is good, I cannot help feeling cotivinced thai the
graduaj appcoach to dark is the wisest method fur line-engraving in

4/6 The Graphic Arts.

such work is always right and valuable, if well done, it misses
the tonic delicacy which the true landscape-painter delights in.
This was given, at last, by the best English engravers after
Turner. Their work reached the high-water mark of landscape-
engraving, and it will never be surpassed in its own way. No-
body will ever translate the tones of water-colour better than
they were translated by Goodall, Wallis, and Miller, in the
vignettes to Rogers. However subtle the distinctions by which
Turner separated the pale towers of his distant cities, or the
shadowy masses of his mountains, or the vaporous heights of
cloud, these men followed him, and in following him they
achieved feats of execution entirely beyond the power of all
those famous artists who are considered the classical masters
of engraving. Goodall taught Robert Brandard, and Robert
Brandard taught his brother Edward, to whom we owe the plate
of * Barnard Castle,* after Alfred Hunt, a work in which, without
servile imitation, the best traditions of Turner and his engravers
are maintained. To any one who understands the enormous
difficulties of rendering tone by line, such a piece of work is a
problem of great interest. How was it ever brought into being?
By the familiar old processes, and with just those common tools
that the worst of engravers has in his box. Simply an etching,
in the first place (a kind of art that used to be despised under
its true name, and admired when it was called 'engraving'),
then most careful work with the burin bringing the shades very
gradually down to their darkness, the lighter tints being aided
by the burnisher and the steel dry-point. The machine-ruler
was not employed either on this plate or in the most delicate
works of the engravers after Turner ; it has long been commonly
employed in the cheaper kinds of landscape-engraving, espe-
cially for skies, but not in the very finest. There is, indeed, no
ruling of any kind in this plate, every line being drawn by hand
as freely as the faithful observance of tone permitted. The
diamond has not been used either, only the common steel, and
a good deal of what the reader sees, especially in the foreground,

Line-Engraving. 477

is etching. Proofs are taken whilst an engraving of this kind is
in progress, and submitted to the painter, who suggests improve-
ments when the engraving is worth it, and heightens it by spar-
kle when it is not. ' I have to thank you,' says Mr. Hunt to me,
' for a great means of improvement in my work. No amount of
pencil or sepia drawing can have the same power of forcing at-
tention to subtleties of black and white and truths of form which
a plate in prospect or in progress exercises over any artist who
deserves to have an engraver's time spent over his design.' On
the other hand, when an engraver has to interpret a delicate
work, worth his serious attention, the long and patient labour is
a delight to him, exactly like that of the scholar who absorbs
himself for weeks or months in the study of an author whom he
appreciates.*

In closing this chapter on Line- Engraving, in which I have
been obliged by limited space to make many omissions, I must
express a regret wliich is shared by all tnie lovers of the fine
arts — the regret that our modern civilisation, with all its wealth,
is not really favourable to the line- engraver. A picture excites
interest when it is exhibited, and the print-seller wishes to profit
by this interest before it has died away. A good line-engrav-
ing might take several years, cheaper methods require a few
months, The art of the line-engraver is most difficult and most
laborious, the money reward is moderate ; the reward in fame
and position is not to be compared with that of a successful
painter. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that
the art should be in danger of extinction. There are sril! a few
men in the world who can engrave, and before they leave it

■ ' It is wilh peculiar pleasure,' says Mr. Brandard, ' that 1 have
engraved the present drawing, which forms so strikitig a contrast to the
usual black and white engravings of the present day, ai to which the
primary object is to get them up as quickly, and showily, and inexpen-
sively as possible, giving the engraver little chance of expending over
them the time and talent which characterised the plates done thirty or
forty years ago, which were so full of re^nement, and of delicate finish
and beauty,'

478 The Graphic Arts.

we may do well to inquire if we cannot keep the art alive in
worthy successors. I have only two suggestions to make, and
these may seem vague and unpractical. The first is that people
should take the trouble to study the qualities of the best engrav-
ing, so as to appreciate it when it reappears ; and the second is,
that the engravers themselves should devote at least some por-
tion of their time to the production of original work, as their
greatest predecessors did. One great reason why modem en-
gravers attract httle attention is that, whatever may be theur
natural gifts, we know them only as interpreters o/L other men's
ideas. There would be great technical advantages in original
work. An engraver not responsible towards another artist might
apply labour, or spare it, in his own way, and the simple omis-
sion, as in other graphic arts, would often be a positive, instead
of a merely negative quality.

Comparison of Une-Engraving with Nature. — The art of
engraving depends for its success upon a very exact adaptation
to the sight of the spectator. Execution which seems wonder-
fully delicate and truthful to the naked eye appears unnatural
when magnified, and when we examine the matter thoroughly
we find that engraving is never, under any circumstances, the
truth, but a very ingenious substitute, always dependent for its
success upon the imperfection of our sight. Human hair, in
stipple, is often represented by a series of dots, and skies and
clouds in line-engraving are represented by sharp burin lines,
which in themselves are absolutely unlike natural skies. En-
gravers are so well aware of this unnaturalness of the means
used that they hardly attempt to conceal them and often show
them very plainly in large plates, believing that the excellence
of the workmanship, fi-om the purely artistic point of view, is a
compensation. Instead of drawing grass, for example, in the
foreground of a large landscape, with anything approaching to
that delicacy which belongs to natural herbage, engravers have
often simply indicated the degree of shade by means of strong

Line-Engraving. 479

lines thrown down like a great black net. It follows from this
that small, highly-finished engravings, in which the lines are not
easily seen, produce upon the mind a stronger impression of
truthfulness than large plates with powerful burin work. When
left to itself line-engraving has never been true in tone, it has
only become so after imitating pictures. In its own natural
condition line-engraving is an exceedingly simple art (though
difficult in its simplicity), and since nature is as complicated as
possible it is plain that such an art must be highly abstract, that
it must reject all the qualities of nature which embarrass it. An
engraving by Marc Antonio is as far from nature as a bronze
bas-relief, an engraving by Dtirer is a collection of objects seen
as they are never seen in the natural world. Even the engrav-
ers of the school of Rubens worked as if they had never seen
nature in their Uves, nor their master's pictures either, but only
his drawings. In modem times engravng has approached more
nearly to the tone and texture of painting, and so resembles
natural appearances. Truth of tone is a most valuable conquest
in landscape, because the feeling and expression of a landscape
often depend upon it ; but in figures it is of much less impor-
tance, and may often be dispensed with if the forms are well
drawn. It is not an evil when organic form is shown in engrav-
ing with clearer definition than in nature, because we all know
that engraving is a linear art, and we like to see the line when it
is beautifiiL

480 The Graphic Arts.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AQUATINT AND BfEZZOTINT.

AQUATINT is a kind of etching in which spaces are
bitten instead of lines, and the object of it is to imitate
a water monochrome. The nearer it approaches in quality
to a drawing in sepia or Indian ink, the better it is.

The principle on which aquatint is founded may be under-
stood by a simple experiment : If you take any acid that will
bite copper quietly, such as perchloride of iron, and apply a
little of it with a brush to a surface of polished copper, and
remove it with blotting-paper after it has remained on the
copper a short time, you will find that on taking a proof of
the plate your blot will give a tint exactly like a pale flat
wash of Indian ink. If you continue the experiment, and
make a series of ten different blots, each bitten longer than
the preceding, you will find on printing the plate that you
have ten different tones, passing from light grey down to a
deep shade which is very nearly black. Here, then, it would
seem at first sight that an artist had at his disposal a very
perfect method for imitating water-colour drawings ; but there
are two defects in the process, as I have described it so far :
the first is, that the tints are all flat, and we cannot deal with
nature without gradation ; the second is, that the darker
tones are very dense and lack transparence, whilst in long
printing they might wear so as to produce a false appearance
by showing whiter in the middle than towards the edges*
The process in this state then might serve as an auxiliary to

i

Aquatint and Me::30tint. 481

work already well advanced in etching, but it would not be
a good process by itself. Gradation might be managed to
some extent by graduated bitings, but these would come
in bands instead of in true insensible gradation. There re-
mains, however, the resource of the scraper and burnisher by
which gradations may be completed.

The next difficulty is about the darks. All the very pale
shades of an aquatint may be bitten on the bare copper, but
as we approach the darks the hollowed copper requires a
stronger grain than its own molecules supply. The way to
get this grain is to protect numerous and minute spots on the
surface of the plate, so that they may always retain their
original level, only the spaces between them being hollowed.
This may be done by the help of anything which will deposit
separate specks of matter that wili resist acid. The acid
bites in the intervals between the specks, and they them-
selves are represented in the printing by little specks of
white. Several ways of getting a grain have been used by
aquatinters. Some men have employed salt made to fall
equally on the plate heated and covered with etching-ground.
When the plate cooled the salt could be washed out with
water, and left holes in the etching-ground through which
acid attacked the copper. Others have employed resin in
powder, which exactly reverses the salt process, for the salt
made holes to admit acid, and the resin made specks to resist
it. The plate, with no covering, was placed at some distance
below a piece of muslin stretched on a frame, and through
this, as a sieve, the powdered resin fell on the plate, which
was then gently heated to fix it. On biting, the specks of
resin left the copper in relief, and so produced little white
spots in the proof. Another plan was to put the plate in a
large box, the air in which was laden with resin in the form
of dust. The box being left quiet the dust subsided equally
the plate, as common dust does on a table.
\Thete is yet another way of using resin to procure granuia-
3'

482 The Graphic Arts.

tion. It may be dissolved in spirits of wine and poured over
the plate and off it, as collodion is on a photographer's glass.
On drying, the coat of resin so deposited contracts, and
innumerable microscopic fissures are produced. The acid
gets into these and bites, respecting the little islands of reSin
which remain between the channels. These islands vary in
size according to the strength of the solution; the weakest
solution gives the smallest channels and islands, so that the
strongest solution is used for the coarsest grain. This is the
process now successfully followed by M. Brunet-Debaines.

Aquatint is seldom practised by itself, it is rather an auxil-
iary to line etching. It was much employed by Goya, the
famous Spanish artist, but very coarsely and only for broad
fiat oppositions of light and dark in his etchings. It was
very frequently used in the early part of the present century,
and was a favourite method for reproducing the drawings of
old masters. It was at first adopted in combination with
etching for reproducing the drawings of Turner's * Liber
Studiorum.' On this subject Mr. Rawlinson says : —

* The engraving of the " Liber Studiorum " was from the first a
matter of the utmost care with Turner. Attracted, it is said, by
the fine series of landscape plates which Paul Sandby had engraved
in aquatint from his own drawings some twenty or thirty years
earlier, and also probably by more recent work by DanieU. Lewis,
and others, in all of which could be readily seen the greater free-
dom of the aquatint process as compared with etching or line-
engraving, more especially in rendering all those effects of light,
cloud, and atmosphere so dear to him, he first decided to employ
that medium, joined (as mezzotint was later) with etching, for
reproducing his designs for Liber. Accordingly, he agreed with
F. C. Lewis, the best aquatint engraver of the day — who at that
very time was at work on facsimiles of Claude's drawings, to
proceed with his first plate, *' The Bridge and Goats,** afterwards
issued as No. 43.*

A dispute about prices led Turner to break with Lewis
after this drawing had been engraved, and directed the

Agitatint and Mezaotinl. 483

painter's attention to mezzotint, which he adopted, finding
several excellent mezzotint engravers prepared to work tor
him by a sound training in the great English school of mezzo-
lint portrait engraving.

it is unnecessary to dwell longer upon aquatint, which has
not held its ground well amongst the graphic arts. A few
modern etchers have successfully used it as an auxiliary, the
most skilful of these being Brunet-Debaines. One of his
best aquatints is from Turner's ' Agrippina landing with the
ashes of Germanicus,' in which there is very little linear etch-
ing, and the engraver has obtained a great variety of tone,
with much of the liquid appearance which belongs to a good
transparent water monochrome. Aquadnts, executed by men
of less refined taste, are often so mismanaged, that the granu-
lation, which ought scarcely to be perceived, except when it
is a help to texture, becomes obtrusive.

Aquatint has one great practical quality ; it resists printing
well. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for its richer
rival.

Mezzotint is a kind of dry point, produced at first in little
raised burs on the copper, not linear, but in points. The
instrument which produces them is a sort of chisel, two and
a half inches broad, sharpened to the segment of a circle,
and with its surface engraved in many fine ridges, producing
points at the edge. This berceau, or rocker, is rocked from
side to side. In mine there are no points, and as to pre-
pare a plate it has to go about 80 times over the copper in
various directions, I find that when a plate, measuring six
inches by five, has been perfectly weil prepared, there must
be two millions six hundred and forty thousand little points
upon it.

In this state of preparation, a mezzotinted plate prints a
rich, soft black, even more lightless than the flat black of
woodcut. The engraver then proceeds from dark to light,
but by tones, not lines, and his method is as comprehensii'e

484 The Graphic Arts.

as possible. For example, suppose that the tones are repre-
sented by the letters of the alphabet, beginning with perfect
black at A, and ending with white at Z, it is plain that he
may begin by reducing everything, except A, to the shade of
R Then he has to reflect, and be careful to preserve both
A and B when they are the right tones in the right places,
and reduce the rest to C. He will deal with C in the same
manner, and so on till he gets to the high lights, Z^ which
are put in last. In short, he advances towards the light
by a steady progression ; but has to be strictly conservative
of shade whilst he is doing it The rule is to keep more
strength of shade than is necessary for the ultimate eflEect,
and to lighten the whole plate together very cautiously at the
last. The instruments used are diflEerent kinds of scrapers,
with which the bur of the rocker is removed. Unfortunately,
the artist cannot take many proofs because they would wear
his plate too much, but he can take a few to guide him (and
a trained eye can see how the plate is going forward) on the
copper.

The qualities of a good mezzotint are great perfection of
tone, with delightful richness and softness, by which many
textures can be rendered. The one misfortune about it is
that it will not bear much printing. The ink is more caught
on the surface by the bur than retained in the hollows, and
when the bur has been removed by the friction of the printer's
canvas and hand, there is little left. We have it on the
formal testimony of Lahee, the printer, Charles Turner, and
Thomas Lupton, the engraver of many Liber Studiorum
plates, that these mezzotints only produced, on the average,
between twenty and thirty proofs of a fine class. C. Turner
affirmed distinctly that all his twenty-five plates lost their
power after they had yielded thirty impressions. This, of
course, refers to mezzotinting on copper ; on steel it yields
much larger editions.

The nature of the art inclines men to aim at breadth of

Aquatinl and MessoHnt. 485

tone rather than minuteness of detail; so that a picture by
Reynolds or Gainsborough is more adapted for mezzolinting
than one by John Lewis or Holtnan Hunt; and yet it is pos-
sible to get detail in mezzotint, as Richard Earlom conclu'
sively proved in his marvellous ' Vase of Flowers,' after Van
Huysum, and in his not less marvellous ' Flowers and Fruits,'
after the same painter, two engravings which are the ne plus
ultra of mezzotint, so far as minute finish is concerned. In
both plates we have extreme delicacy of tone, perfect sharp-
ness and accuracy in the definition of small forms, with such
lucid finish, that even the dewdrops on the leaves have all
their gradations, their reflections, and their transparencies,
whilst they cast the sort of shadows which such bright things
may cast. To any one who knows how difficult it is to model
with a very limited range of tones, it is a rare pleasure to see
the tender middle tint of the vase, with the complete model-
ling of the child-forms, and the pale shades of the white roses
that look as if one could take them. Earlom played with
every conceivable difficulty of intricacy, and of dark and light
things passing before delicately shaded masses. He-would
engrave a fruit with a fly upon it, and the fly's wings had just
the proper degree of transparence, its body the dark armour.
That was what mezzotint could do in detail; but Its highest
work has been in the translation of portraits by Reynolds,
Gainsborough, and Romney. The following paragraph, from
Mr. Wedmore's Studies in English Art, gives, in conveniently
brief compass, some account of the highly cultivated mezzo-
tint engravers of the last centurj', men who attracted no special
attention in their own day, when they supplied a commercial
demand, but who are now more justly appreciated : —

' Of the men who practised mezzotint engraving, many were
themselves painters. Hodges, the engraverof the "Contemplative
Youth," and of "I^y Dashwood," wasaportraitist of some distinc-
tion. Dr. Hamilton tells ub that he spent many years in Holland,
and that he is there considered as of the Dutch school. Richard

486 The Graphic Arts.

Houston was a miniature-painter. S. W. Reynolds, who produced
some of the smaller plates, began as a landscape-painter. Raphael
Smith was, in portraiture, himself an accepted artist. But gen-
erally the greater masters were engravers only. The entire com-
pany numbers one hundred and three, and the greatest among
these are McArdell — an Irishman — James Watson, J. Raphael
Smith, and Valentine Green. Raphael Smith — first, and I sup-
pose most industrious of them all — himself executed more than
forty plates after Sir Joshua: men, women, children: an arch-
bishop, a dancer, a woman of the great world. He began his
work young, and before he was thirty years old he had done much
of that which is now most famous. Engraving altogether one
hundred and fifty plates, he died, hardly an old man, at Doncaster,
in 1812. His print of Mrs. Carnac would alone be enough to give
him rank.'

The mezzotints in the * Liber Studiorum * differ from those
belonging to the Reynolds epoch in being sustained by
powerful etched lines. This greatly facilitates the work of
the engraver by sparing him the necessity for definition, and
by leaving him to give his whole attention to values of light
and dark.

Mezzotint may render the touch of a painter with great
fidelity. The manual style of Constable was interpreted with
close sympathy by David Lucas, a sympathy that won the
hearty approval of Constable himself and of his friend Leslie,
who loved his works more than their author loved them. If
Constable had been interpreted by some formal line-engraver,
we should have had nothing to compare with *The Lock,'
* The Cornfield,* and * Salisbury Cathedral from the Mead-
ows,' in which the strong individuality of the painter is
admirably preserved. * Dear Lucas,' Constable wrote about
the * Salisbury,' * the print is a noble and beautiful thing ;
entirely improved and entirely made perfect.' The only
fault of Lucas was an. excessive caution in the preserva-
tion of his bur, which made his work tend too much towards
blackness.

Aquatint and Mezzotint. 487

Comparison of Aquatint and Messotinf with Nature. — The
tones of aquatint admit of great range, but as the process
does not naturally produce gradation there is a tendency to
flatness ; such aquatinting as Goya's, for example, is not like
nature. Flat aquatint may be a good substitute for tinted
paper in the imitation of drawings. It has been successfully
employed by Amand Durand to imitate the tone of the paper
on which Mr. Poynter's studies for Plato were executed.*
The grain of aquatint is like the texture of some things in
nature, but not of many, so that the process is not nearly so
good for texture as it is for tone.

Mezzotint gives both tone and gradation in absolute per-
fection. It gives some textures admirably, and as it happens
that these are of great importance, and often required, it
seems highly successful. In portrait it gives the texture of
flesh with delightful softness. Hair, in mezzotint, comes in
masses, which avoid the wiry hardness of line. Stuffs, espe-
cially velvet, are rendered with great truth : the reader may
remember the velvet of Rosa Bonheur's jacket, in the por-
trait by Cousins, t and its happy contrast with the texture of
the calf's hair. In landscape, mezzotint very happily renders
the softness of clouds and of reflections in water.

In dealing with strongly accented things, mezzotint lacks
firmness and requires to be supported by stipple or line, unless
the engraver has extraordinary skill and patience, A weak
point in mezzotint is the diiiiicuity in getting sharp and bril-
liant lights, but these are not essential to artistic beauty, and
mezzotint looks more harmonious as it is, with quiet lights,

* If the reader will take a strong magnifier and examine the flat
ground o£ these engravings, he will clearly see the eiact namre of the
granulation produced in acjuatint.

t If there had been more space at my disposal, I would willingly have
attempted to do belter justice to the metita of this great engraver. In
beauly of drawing and fine, clear quality of tone, he has had few equals;
but he is so justly appreciated bv all who understand the fine arts, that
any praise of him would be superfluous.

488 The Graphic Arts.

than if they could be as white and clear as in woodcut On
the whole, it may be truly said that mezzotint comes as near
to nature as the finest charcoal drawing, and is more power-
ful than charcoal in one respect, as it gets down to a greater
depth of tone.

Lithography. 489

CHAPTER XXViri.

LITHOGRAPHY.

THERE are two principal divisions of lithography, ot\&
that imitates chalk drawings, another that imitates
drawings in common ink. Both are founded on the same
chemical principle, the repulsion between water and grease ;
but the art would not have been possible without the dis-
covery of a particular kind of calcareous stone which imbibes
water and grease with equal readiness, having an impartial
affinity for both.

Ink lithography may soon be disposed of. The draughts-
man uses either the point of a camel-hair brash or a pen,
which, for coarse work, may be a quill, for finer work a com-
mon steel pen, and for work that is finer still the miniature
steel pens which are made on purpose for the work, and called
'lithographic crow-quills.' The drawing is made on the stone
with a greasy ink, which is composed' of tallow, white wax,
shell-lac, and common soap, all in equal quantities. The mix-
ture is blackened by an addition of lamp-black, but this is
merely for the convenience of the artist, that he may see his
work better. The tallow is the essential ingredient in the ink;
the soap is there merely to make the tallow work conveniently
with water. The ingredients are mixed in a state of fusion,
but it is unnecessary to trouble the reader with these details
of the laboratory.

Lithographic ink is rubbed with water exactly like Indian
ink, but it is not so pleasing to use. It always has a tendency
to clog the pen, which requires very frequent cleaning, and,

490 l^f^ Graphic Arts.

as the ink is always drying near the point, it has to be con-
tinually cleared away on a piece of lead ; but, with this differ-
ence, it permits the same habits of work as Indian ink, so
that you may draw a sketch on the lithographic stone very
much as you would on paper. It is found, however, in prac-
tice, as with all inks which have considerable body, that the
point of a fine camel-hair brush is more convenient than the
pen for linear drawing on stone. The brush is really the bet-
ter instrument of the two, because it permits the artist to vary
greatly the thickness of his lines, and also to use flat blacks,
as in woodcut.

At the time when lithography was first discovered, the
possibility of making ink drawings on stone, which might be
printed to infinity by means of transfers,* was a great prac-
tical convenience, but this art was employed more for useful
and practical purposes, such as maps and plans, than for
works in fine art. At the present day pen lithography is
entirely superseded, so far as the work of artists is concerned,
by the different methods of photographic reproduction from
pen drawings made on paper. The best of these hitherto
invented, when fidelity to the character of a pen drawing is
required, is the mechanical autotype process, but the pro-
cesses of heliogravure turn pen drawings into engravings,
which is sometimes considered an advantage ;t there are
also photographic processes, but much inferior, which repro-

* A proof taken in a certain way may be made to grease another stone
in similar lines, so that the second stone will yield similar impressions.
When artistic perfection is not required, transfers are just as good for
practical purposes as direct lithographs. Drawings made with litho^
graphic ink on paper specially prepared are also easily transferred to
stone, and they do not require to be drawn in reverse, as all lithographs
which are done on stone directly must be.

t Pen drawings are frequently made in the present day in imitation of
the style of formal engravings, and then reproduced by heliogravure, and
.published as real engravings, because the public has rather a contempt
for photographic processes. In the early days of lithography such pen
drawings would have been done on stone.

L ititography. 49 1

duce pen drawings in imitation of facsimile woodcuts, In
blocks wliicli print with type.* Whatever were the merits
of pen lithography, the reader ought clearly to understand
that they were simply equivalent to those o£ common pen
drawing, and could never be in any way comparable to etch-
ing, which has far greater powers by its various depths of
biting, its use of the auxiliary dry point and burin, and its
resources in artificial printing.

Lithographic ink drawings are made on smooth stones, but
the stones for chalk drawings have a grain, and are prepared
with very different qualities of surface. The grain catches
the lithographic chalk exactly as paper catches common
chalk, having what painters call a ' tooth ' in canvases. The
chaik for lithographic purposes is made of the same materials
as the ink, but in different proportions, the tallow predomi-
nating over the soap, and the wax over the talbw. The
resuU is a camposition wblch may be used like cDinmon
chalk, though it is much softer, and not nearly so convenient.
By skilful hands drawings may be made with It which very
closely resemble ordinary chalk drawings in quality, and, as
they can be printed in ink of any colour, it is possible to imitate
combinations of black and red chaik by drawing the black Lnes
on one stone, the red on another, and printing both on the
same paper. White is obtained in Uthography either by pro-
tecting, on a separate stone, all parts intended to be white
with gum-water and greasing the rest, or else by covering the
whole surface with printing-ink, and then taking out the Hghts
with a scraper, after which they may be etched to give them

• The harm done by bad photogra]>hic processes in the present day is
incalculable. They are vitiating [he taste of thousands who arc unable
to distinguish between whal the photographic engraver sets before them
and the original drawing which is out of theU sight. Such processes
arc like an army of most active and most unfaithful translRlors, and
the lamentable part of the matter is that they are employed by people
who ought to know belter. Pen lithography would be far preferable to
these.

492 The Graphic Arts.

greater depth. In some of Harding's lithographs the imita-
tions of white chalk print in rather high relief, which shows
that the whites were hollowed in the stone. I need hardly
observe that white ink is never used ; it is the surrounding
buff or grey tint which is printed, and the white is simply that
of the paper.

The possibility of printing several stones on the same paper
has allowed lithographers to imitate drawings in three chalks
with remarkable exactness, and in this they have often ren-
dered very acceptable services to the fine arts. The same
possibility, being limited only by the money which people will
give for the work, tempted lithographers to use many stones
and produce chromo-lithography. It seems almost cruel to
condemn in a single sentence the labours of many industrious
and enterprising people, but I am constrained to say that the
proper provinces of chromo-lithography are heraldry, repre-
sentations of stained glass, and copies of mediaeval illumina-
tions. In these minor branches of art it has been very useful,
and has been employed with advantage by antiquaries to give
us more accurate ideas of mediaeval works than we could
have derived from black and white art, but the employment
of chromo-lithography to imitate the synthetic colour of paint-
ers is one of those pernicious mistakes by which well-meaning
people do more harm than they imagine. The money spent
upon a showy chromo-lithograph which coarsely misrepresents
some great man's tender and thoughtful colouring might have
purchased a good engraving or a good permanent photograph
from an uncoloured drawing by the same artist. You will
never meet with a cultivated painter who buys chromo-litho-
graphs, the reason being that his eye is too well trained to
endure them. Some of them, no doubt, are wonderful results
of industry, but, in a certain sense, the better they are the
worse they are, for when visibly hideous they would deter
even an ignorant purchaser who had a little natural taste,
whereas when they are almost pi^u.^ xJcv^-^ ^W^ Vavcv,

Lithography. 493

Black-chalk lithography is that which has been most prac-
tised by artists, and though the process was first patented by
Senefelder in the beginning of this century it has a fair claim
to rank amongst the arts of historical importance because
many artists of distinction have employed it. In England it
is chiefly associated with the name of Harding who, with that
facility for adopting different processes which distinguished
him, soon made himself a most expert master not only of
chalk lithography but of lithotiut also, a kind of drawing on
stone which imitates washes of Indian ink. Harding de-
lighted in lithography, which exactly suited his talent and
enabled him to put what were really autographic drawings
in the hands of his pupils more perfectly than by soft-ground
etching. Some great French painters used lithography for
the expression of their ideas, most of lliem heartily welcomed
and appreciated it. At this distance of time, and with all
the processes of photographic reproduction that we have at
command, it requires a great effort on our part to realise tlie
delight of our predecessors in a process which made excellent
chalk drawings muttipiiable with hardly any perceptible loss
of quality, Eugene Delacroix was so pleased with Mouille-
ron's work after his paintings that he said, 'If I were rich
enough I would estabUsh M, Mouilleron in my own house
and would ask him to lithograph all my pictures. His litho-
graph from my " Duel between Faust and Valentine," has
delicate qualities that I did not remember to have put in the
original.' It is characteristic of those days that G^ricaull
executed a hundred lithographs and just one single etching.
Decamps made seventy-three lithographs and two etchings.
Hippolyte Bellang^ made five hundred lithographs and not
any etchings that I am aware of; indeed, in the life of this
painter lithography occupied exactly the same relative posi-
tion that etching did in the life of Rembrandt. Since these
men, and others with the same tastes, worked assiduously at
.lithography, what a change has come ove.t \.Ue ^-vJdVtf:. '^las^s-''-

494 ^^^ Graphic Arts.

Hardly anybody cares for lithography tiow. I have only
known one man who possessed a collection of lithographs
fairly illustrating the history of the art, and he sent it to be
sold by auction.

Is there any reason in the nature of things why lithography
should be despised as it is ? Surely if such artists as Dela-
croix and G^ricault approved of it the art roust be sound and
serviceable. It is simply chalk drawing made multipliable,
and with the advantage over chalk on paper that small sharp
lights are much more easily taken out. I suppose that the
reason why lithography is disliked is because many lithographs
have been printed long after the drawings had given way, and
also because many other lithographs have been very badly
printed, for it Ts an exceedingly delicate and difficult business
to print properly from stone, and only first-rate workmen can
do it as it ought to be done. Lastly, I suppose that lithog-
raphy has been cheapened in the public estimation because
it has been used for common purposes, such as the titles
on the backs of music and the illustration of books of travel
by amateurs ; but surely we ought to be able to distinguish
between the cheap, every-day application of an art and the
valuable qualities inherent in the art itself. There is no
reason why lithographs done by such men as Leighton and
Poynter directly upon the stone should not be treasured after-
wards amongst the classics of the graphic arts, if only they
were printed with perfect skill and removed from the stone
as soon as the slightest symptom of weakness could be
detected. They would be more truly autographic than any
photograph from a drawing.

Though lithography has almost died out as an original art,
it is still employed for the interpretation of painting and
drawing. It is wonderful that in this age of photographs
a lithographer like Bargue should be able to hold his own,
by sheer force of beautiful drawing, against the precision of
the chemical processes. 'Has dx^mxv^s ^.fter Holbein are quite

^^^ 495

enough to redeem lithography from the reproach of too great
softness and flabbiness, for they are perfectly clear and firm.
The delicate lithographs by J. Laurens, after Rosa Eonheur,
also show great precision of drawing, and entirely avoid
heaviness, ' La Famille,' in which a white-faced cow is lick-
ing a white calf, is an excellent example of moderation and
elegance in workmanship, such as one only expects to find
in an originai drawing. * Aprfes-Diner,' by the same artists,
a group of sheep lying down in a field, is a charming example
of delicate sunny work in pale tones, Eugene Le Roux, in
his lithographs from Charles Jacque, shows great knowledge
of tone and texture, with a truth of minute detail which does
not strike at first, but reveals itself when we are attentive
enough to follow it. I do not hesitate to say that the lithog-
raphers have often approached very much more closely in
drawing, light and shade, touch, and texture, to the modern
painters whom they interpreted, than the old line-engravers
approached to the workmanship of the old masters. There
are many modern lithographs, not valued at their true worth,
which strongly recall the styles of painting followed by the
picturesque modern painters, such as Troyon, Decamps,
Charles Jacque, and the Bonheurs, a service which deserves
acknowledgment ; and if the art of lithography displays good
qualities of tone and texture, and of style in drawing, when
it is employed in the imitation of paintings, it must have the
same qualities when employed as an original art. We know,
too, that it offers no executive impediment to the expression
of thought, except that the chalk is not quite so convenient
as that commonly used by artists.

It is unnecessary to compare lithography with nature, as
I have done for the other arts, because it has no qualities
peculiar to itself. Ink lithography is like pen drawing, and
chalk lithography like ordinary chalk drawing on paper,
except that it affords much greater facilities for taking out
lights, which can be removed at once >N\t\\ ?l ■itx^-^x.

496 The Graphic Arts.

Here may come to an end this examination of the Graphic
Arts. It could not have been briefer without insufficiency,
nor much longer without missing its object, which was to
bring the comparison within the compass of a single volume.
My own impression, after writing the book, is that all these
arts have an equal interest, for when there are large means
and powers the wise emplo)rment of them is the difficulty ;
and when there are smaller means, as in the poorer and more
restricted arts, then the demand upon the mental resources,
both of the artist and the lover of art, becomes all the
greater. The difficulty in oil painting is to use wisely, that
is to say, in due subordination and moderation, the very
various and extensive powers which chemistry has placed at
the disposal of artists ; the difficulty in engraving is how
to get sufficiently varied effects out of two such simple ele-
ments as the line and the dot, and with two such poor tools
as the burin and the point. If, however, I had any prefer-
ence, as a critic, for one art over another, I think perhaps
it would be rather for an art in which the worker had done
much with little, for then it seems as if mind were more,
and matter less, in proportion. The material splendours of
the Graphic Arts, the great gilded frames, the vast canvases,
the expensive colours, the broad surfaces of wall, are scarcely
better than encumbrances, since many of the finest thoughts
and the tenderest emotions of great artists have been ex-
pressed with little labour, on a small scale, ai^d in the very
cheapest materials.

INDEX.

Accuracy in drawing, nevo* perfect, 14.
Adulteration of pigments, 282.
Aesthetic pleasure, 8 ; its effect upon

the mind, 31 ; the charm it gives to

life, 32 ; the danger of, 33.
Airy, Sir George, portrait of, engraved

by Jeens, 474.
Aldegrever, Henry, 462.
Aligny, his style of pen-drawing, 95, 96 ;

the defect of his pen-lines, 98.
AUong^, a master in charcoal, 161 ; qual-
ity of his charcoals and choice of sub*

jects, 169.
Ahna Tadema, his combination of antir

quarian and artistic merits, 3S.
Alphabets, congruity in, 16.
Amateurs, how they might do useful

work, 20.
American, the, how she foundered, 11.
Angelo, Michael, his use of thick line,

100.
Antonio, Marc, 473 ; his * Five Saints,'

460 ; his * Dido,' 466 ; his * Massacre of

the Innocents,' 461 ; his * Virgin with

the Long Thigh,' 468; his * Virgin

with the Staircase,' 460 ; his * Lucre-

tia,' 462 ; his portrait of Aretino, 461,

466.
Appian, a master in charcoal, 159; his

manner of painting, 334.
Aquatint, 480; compared with nature,

487.
Archaeology, in painting, 38, 39.
Architecture, drawing of, 108; and

painting, laws of tlieir combination,

219.

Areas, drawing by, 76 ; drawing by, Its
effect upon the mind of the artist,
77 ; dra¥ring by, essentially the meth-
od of painters, 78.

Armitage, his opinion about simple
work in fresco, 242; his method of
painting, 327.

Aronenini, on the use of vermilion is
fresco, 233.

Art, the universality of its sympathies, 44*

Art, graphic, weakness in describing
character, 35; its incapacity for rea-
soning, 40.

Artists, clever, dangerons when records
of fact are wanted, 11.

Arts, graphic, often compelled to go
beyond knowledge, 39 ; formerly ex-
cluded from the education of gentle-
men, 41 ; how they lead us to study
nature, 46.

Asphaltum, 296.

Astrt^gia^ the, 454.

Aureolin, 295.

* Avaricious Man,' Holbeiii's, 419.

Baldini, Bacdo, 453.

Bargue, lithographer, 494.

Bartolomeo, Fra, his method of begin-
ning a picture, 268.

Baryta, chromate of, 288 ; white, 297.

Beham, Bartholomew, his portrait of the
Emperor Charles V., 46(&.

Beham, Hans Sebald, 462 ; his Prodigal
Son, 4^3*

Bellang^, HiwoV^^fci^wfl^'^^'^'w*"*^^^^'^^

32

498

Index.

Bellini, Gentile, as a pen<draaght3man,
89.

Bertin, Edouard, his systan of pen-
drawing, 95.

Bewick, his qualities as a wood-en-
graver, 405 ; his system of wood-en-
graving, 406; his want of artistic
education, 408; hb opinion about
cross-hatdiing in wood-engraving, 409.

Bistre, its origin and qualities, 183 ; its
use in water-coloiur, 375.

Black, ivory, 287, 292.

Black, William, what he has gained from
the graphic arts, 42.

Blacks, flat, in pen-drawing, 97.

Black stone, compared with nattuie, 155.

Block-books, 415.

Blot, the black, 97.

Blue, Prussian,^ 281, 295.

Boetius a Bolswert, engraver, 465.

Bolognese, a drawing by, 57.

Bonington, analysis of his work in lead-
pencil, 140.

BOTghini, a recommendation of h» about
blue in tempera, 211.

Boschini, on Titian's way of psundng,
268.

Bossuet, portrait of, by Rigaud, engraved
by Drevet, 469.

Botticelli, Sancko, his study of two
draped figures, 128.

Boughton, G. H., his pen-drawing, 102.

Bouguereau, his manner of painting,

333-

Brandard, Edward, his engraving of
* Barnard Castle,* after Alfred Hunt,
476.

Bristol boards, used by Turner, 385.

Brockedon, his improvement in the man-
ufacture of lead-pencils, 143.

Brown, how it may be modified by cool
tints and warm ones, 258 ; Cappagh,
290-293 ; Vandyke, 290.

Browning, his appreciation of the graph-
ic arts, 42.

Brunet-Debaines, his etched landscapes
afto- Turner. 482 ; process used by
him in aquatint, 483; his aquatint
from Turner's 'Agrippina landing
with the Ashes of Germanicus,' 483.

Brush, toudies with, on pendl drawings,

»34.
Brushes used in fresco, 234; used in

water-colour, 385.

Brush-point, the quality of the line it
gives, 120.

Buhl, paper, 384.

Buisson, Jules, his pen-drawings of Dep-
uties, 104.

Burin, the, how used, 449; engraving
with, how wanting in freedom, 450;
varieties of expression to be obtained
with, 468.

Cadmium, orange, 294; pale ydlow,

288-291.
Calderon, his method of painting, 326-

32«.
Camaieu, 198.

Cambiaso, his drawings in the UflKzj,
116.

Canson, his paper, 383.

Canvas, for oil-painting, 302-304.

Caronddet, portrait of, by Mabuse, 213.

Casanova, his pen-drawing, 98.

Cassel earth, 296.

Cattermole, his paper, 383.

Cennini, on the use ctf vermilion in
fresco, 233.

Censure, the School of, 49.

Chalk, black, resists wash, 120; black,
144 ; how used by painters, 144-146 ;
and wash, 147 ; black and white, 148-
1 50 ; compared with nature^ 148 ; litho-
graphic, 491.

Chalks, three, imitated in lithography,

49«.
Characters, Greek, beauty of, 17.

Charcoal, used in drawing, 6, 157; va-
rious qualities of, 163; fiacility of
removing it, 164, 165; tedmiad re-
sources of, 165 ; its qualities, 166 ; its
rapidity, 167; combined with chalk,
171; coml»ned ^th ink, 172; as a
faa^ for watercolour, 173 ; effects of,
on etched plates, 440.

Charcoal-drawing, comparison of, with
nature, 174-176; modem, history of,
158 ; its true genius, 162 ; its want of
intense blackness, 163.

Index.

499

Charcoal-drawings, the ways of fixing
them, 163, 164.

Chardin, pastels fay, 206.

*■ Charles I. with the Marquis of Hamil-
ton and a Page,' by Vandyke, engraved
by Strange, 469.

Charlet, his use of the pen, 98.

Chiaroscuro, absence of, in Holbein's
drawings on wood, 420.

'Children of Charles I.,' by Vandyke,
engraved l^ Strange, 469.

Chinese, their system of drawing, 97.

' Christ Arrested,' by Cambiaso, 115; the
life of, difficulties in painting, 37 ; his
life, how we desire truthful illustra-
tions of it, 42.

* Christopher, St,' a famous woodcut,
405.

Chromium, emerald oxides of, 4, 290,
292, 294, 329.

Chromo-lithography, 492.

Church of England, the, its use of paint-
ing, 43-

Church of Rome, the, its use of paint-
ing, 43-

Church, the Greek, its use of painting,

43-
Classic lines, how simplified, 99.

Claude, his pen-drawings, 92 ; his com-
bination of pen and wash, 117 ; a tree
by him, in pen and wash, 1 18 ; a brush
drawing by him in the Liber Veriiatis^
187; his method of painting, 274; a
simple artist to engrave, 470.

Coarseness in art, real and apparent, 84,

85.

Cobalt, 292-294 ; cobalt green, 293, 294,
326.

Colour, local, its place in useful drawing,
18.

Colours, the primary, 2S7.

Colvin, Professor, quoted, 455.

Constable, his love of glitter on foliage
and use of spots. Si ; his chalk draw-
ings, 146-149; his method of paint-
ing, 315; his 'Cornfield,' 315; his
'Salisbury Cathedral,' 315; his wide
technical influence, 316; his 'Valley
Farm,' 315 ; how his style was inter-
preted by Lucas, 486W

Cooke, a scientific painter, 45.
Copies, the contempt for, 3S8.
Copper, its influence upon art, 5 ; value

of, for etching, 430.
Corinth, view of, by Aligny, 95.
'Cornfield,* the, by Constable, engraved

by Lucas, 486.
Correggio, his technical practice in paint-

ingi 270, 278, 279.
Cousins, Samuel, engraver in mezzotuit,

487.
Cox, David, how he used to work on

charcoal, 173, 174; his use of cobalt

and light red, 346.
Crayon cont6, used on charcoal - draw-
ings, 173-
Creswick, his paper, 383, 384.
Crome, old, his method of painting,

312.

Daubigny, Karl, his manner of paint-
ing, 334-
Daimiier, the French caricaturist, 97.

David, his classical school, causes of its
failure, 38 ; quality of liis work, 307.

'Death and the Bishop,' Holbein's,
419 ; * Dance of,' Holbein's, 418.

Decamps, one of the first practitioners
of charcoal, 158 ; his style one of sim-
plification, 170; his work as a litho-
grapher, 493.

Delacroix, Eugene, as a pen-draughts-
man, 100 ; his use of pastel, 201 ; his
palettes, 317; his hearty appreciation
of lithography, 493.

Delaroche, Paul, his palette, 316.

Delaune, Etienne, his combats, 457.

Denduyts, Gustavo, his manner of paint-
ing, 333-

De Neuville, his pen-drawing, 104.

De Wint, his system of sketching,
361.

Diamond, the, used by engravers, 6 ; as
an instnmient for dry point, 439.

' Dodges ' in modem art, 56.

Donatello, pen-sketch by, in the collec-
tion of the Due d'Aumale, 85.

Doo, engraver, 475.

Dor^, Gustave, woodcuts from his de-
signs, 422.

Soo

Index.

Drawing, useful and aesthetic, 9; ex-
planatory of intentions, 13; median-
ical, 14; for aesthetic pleasure, 23;
useful, its value as an assistance to
literary or verbal explanation, 34;
painted, 266.

Drawings in red, philosophy of, 1 5 i-i 54.

Drevet, Claude, 469 ; Pierre, the elder,
468 ; Pierre, the son, 468.

Dry point, 430 ; process of, 438.

Dubois, Hippolyte, painted tapestry by,

393-
Du Maurier, George, 98, 418 ; his use of

blacks and whites, 107.

Diirer, Albert, his use of line, 65 ; his
system of pen-drawing, 93 ; his silver-
point drawing of Cardinal Albert of
Mayence, 129; a portrait by, in tem-
pera, 213 ; his woodcuts, 416 ; explan-
atory nature of his engravings, 455,
466 ; his employment of shading, 455-
457 ; his ' Melencolia,' 456 ; his ' Shield
with the Lion and Cock,' 458 ; his por-
trait of the Elector of Saxony, 458.

Dyce, William, on peeling in tempera,
212; his opinion about air in fresco,
230.

Earlom, Richard, his minute finish in
mezzotint, 485.

Eastlake, Sir Charles, his explanation of
t^npera, 210.

Edridge, Henry, his pencil-drawing of
* La Tour de la Grosse Horloge, Ev-
reux,' 141.

Engraving, public taste in, 451 ; early
Italian, 452.

Etching, 430 ; principle of, 432 ; its free-
dom, 433 ; unpopularity of, 434 ; lim-
itations of, 435 : the process, 436 ;
nature of the bitten line, 437 ; variety
of» 437 ; ^^ best, 441 ; liie printing
of, 444 ; soft-ground, 445 ; comparison
of, with nature, 446; the white line
in, 447 ; medical use of, 448.

Etty, his use of few colours, 284.

*Europa, Rape of,' by Claude, 117,
118.

Eytf thCj how educated by graphic art,

47'

\

Flamcng, 443.

Fortuny, his system of pen^lrawing,
98.

Frans Hals, 279.

Fresco, 217; abandoned in England,
223; process of, 227; how trying to
the artist, 227; its practical incon-
venience, 228, 234 ; pure, a slight form
of art, 229; favourable to light, 231 ;
unfavourable to chiaroscuro, 231 ; pig-
ments used in, 232 ; loading in, 233 ;
its probable efifects on painting, if it
had been exclusively followed, 249.

Frescoes in the House of Lords, 241.

Gainsborough, 42, 485.

Gamboge, its use in water-colour, 374.

Gaucherel, his etched landscapes, after
Turner, 444.

Gaude, laque de, 318.

Gauthier, Th^hile, what he gained
from the graphic arts, 42.

George, Ernest, his architectural sketch-
es, 108.

G^ricault, as a pen-draughtsman, 100;
his work as a lithographer, 493-

G^rdme, his use of tiie lead-pencil,
132.

Ghirlandajo Domenico, a head by, in the
British Museum, 129.

Gilbert, Sir John, his pen-work, loi ;
his method of drawing in fine and
wash, 114; on monochrome, 257; his
method of painting in oil on a mono-
chrome foundation, 324; his system
of painting in water-colour, 380 ; his
palette for water-colour, 382.

Giorgione, his use of the pen, 92 ; his
use of pen and wash. 116.

Glazing, in oil-painting, 304; a vulgar
error concerning, 305.

Gobelins, tapestries from, in the Louvre,

396.
Goodall, engraver, 476.
Goya, his use ci aquatint, 482, 487.
Greeks, the ancient, their interest in

simple line, 63 ; their colouring, 285.
Green, emerald, its use in water-colour,

379 ; malachite, 296 ; sap, 296 ; sap.

^^^^^V 501 V

Green, ValmHne, engravfi in meiio-

of his work in walercolour, 371; his

tint,4«'.

drawing of ' A Welsh Hollow by Twi-

Creuie, hU method of p^unting, 311;

light,' 371 ; his drawing of ' Barnard

Castle,' 476.

Grinding, importance of, in «iIour5,

Hunt, Holman, his method of painting,

aSo.

328-331.

Hunt, William, his system of painting

Hair of difllerent kinds used in paint-

ing, 6.

< Hunting in the Holidays,' Leech, [06.

Hand, tlie, how educated by graphic

»«,47-

Ideals of artists not the same, 25.

Harding, critidsms in his PHmipUs

343-

and Praaia of Art, 57 ; his cuiture

tobe,3P.

giaphs. .4?; on the mechaiJcal diffi-

Impasio, 30S.

culties oi the brush, 18;^ a sepia

'ImperfKt'arts,Sj.

drawing by, iSS ; his piper, 383, 384 ;

ImperfecdoB in the graphic arts, 434.

his skill in lithogr^h^, 493.

ImfnssiaHHistas, the French, 30.

Hardy, J. F., his charcoal views of

fmpreasions, how artists use them, 30.

Arundel Castle, 170.

Indian ink, tr3; quality of its shade,

^^^aimony in drawing, 53.

^^■PHrpignies, his grey ptn^lrawings, 107.

coal, .71; its qualities dcscrihod by

^^Bui'ey, his woodcut from Haydoa's

Tbpffer, 179; itsqaalitiea as described

^^^*Denfatns,'399.

by M&imfe, i3r ; the author's ex-

^^ Hfdouin, Edmond, his stucEes fqr his

perience of, 18a 1 compared with

picture ' Faucheuts de Sainfoin,' 148.

Frendi ultramarine, 345 ; used with

Herbert, J. R., B.A., his opinion about

water-colours, 378.

(resco, 22a.

Indigo, 296 ; its use in water^nIour,

Highlands, a s«ne in, 35-

374-

^^■GQstorical painting, an unsatisfactory

^■^■^39.

Ingres, his culture of the lead-pencil,

^^^^Rodges, engraver in mezzotint, 48;.

132 ; his portrats in lead-pendl, 137 i

^^^^■Tl^artli, 43 ; his ' Marriage i la mode,'

his way of painting, 31S ; his ■ Oedi-

^K''-

pus,' 3t9 i his ' Source,' 319.

^^^^Holbein, his use of vanoos materials in

^^^F' one drawing, T17 ; his studies of the

489.

^^B hands of Erasmus, 128 ; his position

Inquiry, the Sdiool of, 50.

^^^F «ich regard to woodengraving, 418.

Intonace, in fresco, 327, 229.

^^^^Roll, Ftanci^, engraver, 474.

Iodine scarlet, 317.

^^^^Ballar, the engraver, 443.

Italian painting, its prir-dples, 265 ; its

^^■Hood, Thomas, merits of his pen-diaw-

charactetiatics, 266 ; modem, 273.

^■^ings, .04.

Ivory, used by mioiaturtpainters, 4.

^^■loogstraten, Rembrandt's pupil, his

^^K lense of the Importance of lively

Jacquemart, Jules, his work as an

^^r lundling, 261.

etcher, 365 : his system of water-

^^^^taonston, engraver in mezzotint, 486.

colour sketching, 367 ; his wonderful

imitations of substanoa viv i*)*™q„

^HRuit, Alfred, his drawing of 'Fang.

^«.

^^B ioarneoa the Thames,' 3;; ; delicacy

Ja^awftc^'ftiM s-jS.lKm tS. ftaa-^^^'i,.'"-

502

Index.

Jeens, C. H., engraver, 473.
Jones, Bume, his use of the lead-pencil,
132.

Kanlbach, frescoes by, at Berlin, 235.
Knowledge, artistic, how deq> it is, 31 ;
in art, 53.

Lakes, the cochineal, 288, 293 ; yellow,
295.

Lalanne, his work with the lead-pendl,
133 ; his work in charcoal, 159 ; his
charcoal drawings reproduced by Ber-
ville, 169.

Lance, his combination of water-colour
and oil, 314.

Landelle, his manner of painting, 333.

Landscape, linear beauty in, 71 ; dis-
liked by severe students of classic
line, 71 ; monochromes, the favourite
colour for, 152.

Landscapes, painted, how they ought to
be etched, 444.

Landseer, his love of sparkle, 81 ; his
technical qualities, 319.

Latour, his way of preparing pastels,
206 ; his pastels, 206.

Laurens, J., lithographer, his work after
Rosa Bonheur, 495.

Lawson, Cecil, his pen-drawing, 102.

Layard, Sir H., quoted, 235.

Lead-pencil, under wash, 120, 132 ; not
duly appredated, 132 ; the hard line in,
133 ; imitation of local colour by, 136 ;
drawing with, compared with nature,
141.

Lead, red, 295 ; white, 297.

Leech, John, his use of line, 107 ; his
' Oh, my goodness I it's beginning to
nun t ' 106 ; his drawing on wood,
418.

L^;ros, Professor, his drawings in the
museum at Dijon, 132, 455.

Leighton, Sir Frederick, a linguist, 45 ;
hb favotuite materials for studies,
150; his 'Arts of War' at South
Kensington, 246, 384 ; his method of
painting in oil, 325.

Le RouXf Eugene, his lithographs aiVex
Charles J acqae, 495.

\

Lhermitte, his work in charcoal, 159.

Li^er VeritatiSj Claude, 118.

Line, classical and picturesque, 71 ;

used with auxiliary washes, 112 ; its

value as a means of expression in

etching, 446.
Linear drawing, qualities of, 62.
Line-engraving, 449 ; a discipline, 450 ;

compared with nature, 478.
Lines, classic, how simplified, 98.
Linnell, the elder, hb use of the spot,

81 ; his use of glazing, 305 ; his

method of painting, 321.
Linton, wood-engraver, 400; quoted,

401.

* Lion holding a Serpent,' by G^ricault,

100.

Lionardo da Vind, his profiles of a child
in silver point, 129 ; cartoon portrait
by, in black stone, sanguine, and
pastel, 207 ; primitive nature of his
painting, 267.

Literary education, its e£Fect on our
judgment about substances, 2.

Literature, difference of, from art in the
importance of materials, i.

Lithography, dependent upon a pecu-
liar stone, 5, 490; probable reasons
for its tmpopularity, 494*

Lithotint, 493.

Loading, in oil painting, 304.

* Lock,' the, by Constable, engraved by

Lucas, 486.
Lucas, David, engraver in mezzotint,

486.
Limiinais, psunted tapestry by, 393.
Liitzelburger, Hans, Holbein's engraver,

418.
Lyell, Sir Charles, portrait of, engraved

by Jeens, 474.

Mabuse, portraits by, in tempera,

213.
McArdell, engraver in mezzotint, 486.
Maclise, his hard manner, 21.
Macmillan, Mr., portrait of, engraved by

Jeens, 474.
Madder, brown, 293 ; deep, 294 ; rose,

aqo-i,<^^\ Y^low, 295, 328.

^^^I^B J03 ^

wood-oigreving, 410 ; a Tignelte by,

the old masters, tSy; water, com-

4.1.

pared with nature, 1B9.

Mantegna, drawing by him in »asli and

brush-point, 110, 454.

opaque, compared, 196 ; oii, liow they

Maps, the Ordnanca, liow line is used

may be treated to avoid chromatic

in tb«n, 65.

oHetice, 19S.

Marks, hia pen-drawing, loa.

Morcau, Jean Michel, engraver, 470.

Masters, the Litlle, 463.

Morris, WiUiam, what he has gained

46.

from the graphic arts, 42.

Mosaic, its inferiority to painting, 2481

arts, 1.

should be employed lavishly or not at

Maiaolle, painted tapestry by, 393.

all, 14S i its bad eflect on sober pamt-

Mediums, their effi^ct upon the worlt of

ing near it, 148.

oil^fflnters, 307-

Mercurj, Paolo, engraver, 471.

CTOut, 493.

MlillH, WiUiam, his painting of ' A Tor-

Meziotint, 4S1; the process, 483; its

tent ' in the National Gallery, 333 ; his

quaUtiea, 484 ; compared with nature,

manner In oil, 323; his sketche in

4S7.

water-colour, 358 ; hia way of sketch-

Michael Angelo, his style in pen^iiaw-

ing from nature, 359.

ing, 86, 87.

Multeady.his studies in three crayons.

Millboards for oil-painting, joi.

■54 ; his latest style, 310.

Miller, engraver, 476.

Munich, frescoes at, 235.

Millet, simplicity of his chalk drawings,

147; hij drawing of 'Les Deux

his ' Milton and his Daughters,' 323 ;

Faneuses,' i4Si his drawing of the

his ■ Christ before Pilate,' 323.

' Faggot-makers,' 148.

Mystery, oinitled in useful drawing,

Milnet, Bernard, an early French en-
graver, 405.
Miiture of pigments, principles of,

'9.

Nanteuil, Robert, 467; his portrait of

378.

Peter de Maridat, 467 ; his portrait

Mixtures in water-colours, given by

of tlie Marquis of Cialelnau, 467;

Samuel Palmer, 379.

his portrait al the Marquis de Pom-

Modelling in drawing, 64.

ponne, 46S ; his portrait of La Mothe

Monochrome, used by the Roman and

le Vayer, 46S.

Florentine schools as a preparation.

Nelson, Lord, his statue in Trafalgar

16S ; as a foundadon for colour in

Square, 14; the 'Death of,' water.

glass painting by Madlse, 340.

tempering the crtideness of colours.

Newman, Cardinal, his estjnate of draw-

a;8 ; foundation, danger of, a jg ; oil,

ing, 41.

divided into two classes, 191 ; col.

Ochre, yellow, 290-394 ; blue, 596.

used with water, 19a ; oil, dilBculty

Oil, linseed. 300.

Oil-pamting, 250 ; the kind of art which

^^■tcomparatively little used, 194 ; oil, in-

most readUy adapts itself to the varie-

ties of human genios, 357; valne of

the deliberation which it allows, 2^7 ;

rules iboiA \>a ^lacutjt, -««> "»■"!."■■

^^^^kgS ; water, 177; water, Iiow used by

compaIiaonti\,-«\*vM.'™-'«."i'^-

504

Index.

Oils and varnishes, conservative effect
of, 299 ; manufacture of, 300.

Ostade, * Family Scene ' by, tinted, 122.

Orpiment, 288, 295.

Outline, the danger of it, 64.

Outlines, how employed in painting and
engraving, 68.

Painting in oil, degrees of its ripeness,

Painting, mature and immature, 279.

Painting, mural, 220 ; its peculiar quali-
ties, 220; impopular when righUy
done, 221.

Palette, how tp form a complete one
with few pigments, 285 ; of five pig-
ments, 287 ; of nine pigments, 290 ;
of eighteen pigments, 293 ; of twenty-
four pigments, 294; papier mdcAe,
for water-colour, 377.

Palma, on Titian's way of fini?ihing a
picture, 26S.

Palomino, on the use of vermilion in
fresco, 233.

Panels, for oil-painting, 302.

Pannemaker, St6phane, wood-engraver,
400 ; his engraving of a * Jeune Fille '
from a picture by Jacquet, 401.

Paper, the qualities best for charcoal,
159 ; wire-marks in, 160, 161 ; pre-
pared for charcoal drawings, 173;
used for pastel, 203 ; qualities of, 341.

Papers, tinted, the use of, 137 ; tinted
and gradated, 138 ; smooth and rough,
used with lead-pmdl, 139 ; light and
dark, 145 ; dark, convenient in stm-
shine, 146; used in water-colour,

382.

Parliament, Houses of, the great at-
tempt to decorate them pictorially,
223.

Parry, Gamlner, his spirit fresco, 244;
the medium for his spirit fresco, 245.

Pastel, its charm and Geminate soft-
ness, 200; its delicacy of constitution,
201 ; colours used in, how prepared,
202 ; rubbed tints and decided touches
in, 203 ; comparison of, with nature,
20^ ; weH ad^ted for studies of skies
and water, 208.

Pen and ink, 82.

Pen, the qualities of its line, 119.

Pen-drawing, its imperfection, 93; its
modern use for printed sketches from
pictures, 101 ; compared with nature,
109.

' Penitent,' the, by Diirer, 416.

Penne, De, painted tapestry by, 392.

Penni, Francesco, his part in the car-
toons, 214.

Percy, Dr., his analysis of wall-paint-
ings, 235-

Perugino, his drawing of an * Angd lead-
ing a Youth,' 126.

Pettenkofer, Dr., his advice to Maclise
about water-glass, 236.

Photogrs^phy, misooncq>tions about, 12.

Piero deUa Francesca, portraits by, in
tempera^ 212.

Pigmoits, fugitive, 281 ; the use of a
few, 282 ; used for oil, 280, 281.

Pisano, Vittore, a drawing by, in the
Louvre, 129.

Plon, his type, 15.

Poesia^ th^ 454.

Poets, how they avoid precision of lo-
cality, 26.

PoUphilo, 414.

Pompadour, Madame de, portrait <^, by
Latour, 206.

Pontius, engraver, 465.

Poussin, Nicolas, drawings by him in
line and wash, 115.

* Primo Molule,' the, 453.
Princeteau, painted tapestry by, 392.
Prinsq>, his picture of the ' Proclamation

of the Queen as Empress of India,' 2f^.
Processes, thdr mor{dM>k>gy, 6.
Prud'hon, his studies in black and white

dialk, 150; a sketch by, in pastel,

207.
Punchy woodcuts in, 422.
Puvis de Chavannes, his style of mural

pamting in oil, 335.

* Quixote and Sancho before the Duch-
ess,' by Sir J. Gilbert, 101.

I Rajon, 443, 444.

^^^^^H 1

hb sbtdi of the 'Virgin with the

paindng, 377, "79! his study of a

Bulfinch,' at Oxford, 87 ; a study by

gravere from, 464.

use of pen with sUvet-poini, la?; hia

Ruler, the, how dangerous in artistic

cattoanSiiij; qualities 0! hi; painting,

drawing, 66.

366; and hie imitaloTS, ptindpla of

thor colouting, 367; the Garvagti,

'St. Helena,' by Paul Veronese, en-

176; his method of panning, 277.

graved by Lumb Stocks, 471.

Riwlinson on Tutne, quoted, 463.

' Salisbury Cathedral,' by Conslablt, en-

Red,Ughl,J9J; Venetian, lyj.

graved by Lucas, 4S6.

Keid, Gfotgp, his drawing of Montrose,

Salt, how employed in aquatint, 481.

S6.

Sanguine, compared with nature, 15;.

Remhrandt, a drawing hj, 57; his use

Sarto, Andrea del, his study of a female

of outline, 67 ; his panlrawings, 96 ;

face and bust, 153.

his use of thick line, loo; his draw-

Schelte a Bolswert, engraver, 465.

ings in pen and wish, .19 ; his dra«-

Scott, W. B., quoted, 463.

Scott, Sir Walter, his poetic affectation

by the Angel, appearmg lo Abraham,'

of Popery, 15.

ia6i his mitiire style «ilh the brush,

Scriiuir-i Maga««t, 436.

2C3 ; his practice in oil-painting, 264 ;

his love of depth, 364; qualities of

Scumbling, nature of, 3of..

^^^ .his colour, 366, /aUnoU; bis studies

Seddon, Thomas, his ' Jerusalem,' 10.

^H. iD brown touched with colour, 347 ;

Sepia, deeper than Indian ink, 179;

^^■(tuE elching of a pig, 4^3.

Tiipffer's opinion of, 1S3.

Shade, its place in useful drawing, ig.

^m^''

Shadow, accidental, its explanatory

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 41; on Greek

value, iS.

painting, 183 ; his method of paint-

•Shield with the Lion and Cock,' by

Diher, 417,440.

Sienna, burnt, 391 ; raw, 393.

Reynolds, S. W., engraTet in meiio-

SiWer, used In drawing, 4.

tint, 4S6.

Silver-pomt, disuse of, 134 ; description

Ribot, hb system of pen-dramng, 103.

Right and wrong in art, 51-56.

136 i not an imperfect instrument.

Roberson's medium, 314.

Romano, Giulio, his cartoons, 214.

137! compared with nature, 130.

Romney, 485.

Rousseau, Theodore, as a pen-diaughts-

Si«Tainting, 210.

inan,99; astudy by, 153; his use of

Sketching in oil from nature, a method

glaring, 303-

of doing it without having to wait for

Rowhotham, T. I_, drawings by, m In-

drying, 302,

dian mk, .88.

Slocombc, his etching of ' His Grace,'

Rubens, a foiguisl, 45 ; his studies of a

after Pettie, ,43.

'MantakingaThomoutofhisFooV

Smith, Raphael, engraver in meizothit,

131 ; his use of three chalks to sug-

4S6.

gest colour, 154; his principles of

Solario, Andrea da, qualities of his

painting maturer than those of Van

painting, 366,

Eyck, 260 1 his fallacy about white

Spot, the, its inferiority to IhtiU™,^.

^^m grounds, 361 ; the quality won by

Spots, dtasi'\TV%'Qj,-iq-, ^1.\we X.aro.«««^i

^K him for painting, 1O6; his nietliodol

«, s,uxvs\Vvtie ^.\at.\«. «oiv^^\v^^.-fc°-

■

5o6

Index,

Sted, used for etching, 450.

Stipple, in watercolour compared with
inter-hatching, 370.

Stocks, Lumh, engraver, 471.

Stothard, his ' Mark Anthony and Cleo-
patra,' 314 ; his picture entitled
< Nymphs binding Cupid,' 314 ; his
picture entitled * Nymphs discover
the flower Narcissus,' 314.

Strange, engraver, 469.

Strontia, chromateof, 288 ; white, 295.

Tapestry, woven, 38S ; pointing on, 388 ;
painting on, the jn-ocess, 390 ; mend-
ing of old woven tapestry with painted
patches, 390; painted, qualities of,
395 ; painted, comparison of, with
nature, 396.

Task^ the, by Cowper, Birket Foster's
edition, 423.

Tay Bridge, its breakdown, 12.

Tempera, 209 ; pigments useful in, 21 1 ;
favourable to sharp definition, 212-
215 ; compared with nature, 215 ; tiie
transition from it to varnish painting,
253 ; and varnish painting in a com-
pound process, 254.

Teniers, D., *A Smoking-place ' {tab-
agie) painted, 258 ; his m^hod of
painting, 277.

Terra Verte, 281, 293.

Texture, its employment in useful draw-
ing, 19.

Thackeray, what he gained from the
graphic arts, 42.

Thiers, his Museum of Copies, 38S.

Things, the charm in, 4.

Thomson, Sir William, portrait of, en-
graved by Jeens, 474.

Titian, his power as a pen«dnughtsman,
89 ; liis pen-drawing of Peter Martyr,
90 ; three landscapes by him, drawn
with the pen, 90; pen-drawing by
him in the Dresden Museum, 92 ; his
study of * A Man holding a Halbert,'
153 ; his way of beginning a picture,
268; quality of his finished works, 269;
value of rich surfaces in his w(»ks,
271 ; his love of coarse canvases, 370 ;
his method of painting, 278.

Tone, in line-engraving, 479.

Topographic draughtsmen, how mis-
judged, 19.

T(^)ographic landscape, its failure,
10.

Trafalgar Square, arrangwnent of, 24.

Triads, two brilliant, 286.

Troyon, one of the fifst practitioners of
charcoal, 158.

Truth in art, 8-10; what artists say
about it, 28.

Turner, his enchanting scenes, 28, 29 ;
his use of wash and brush-point, 117 ;
hb point-drawings, 134; his use of
two chalks, 150; his * Bridge of
Sighs,' 313; his combinations of
watercolour and oil, 313 ; his * Bligh
Sand near Sheemess,' 313 ; his * Chi-
chester Canal,' 313; his *Petworth
Park, Tillington Church in the Ins-
tance,' 313 ; his method of painting,
312 \ pigments used by him, 314 ; sky
in his * Mew Stone,' 353 ; sky in his

* Stonehenge,' 353; his system of
sketching in water-colour, 361-365 ;
his * Chateau Hamelin,' 364; his
sketch of *Vevay,* 363, footnote;
hb sketdi of * Lausanne,* 363; his

* Righi from Lucerne,' 364 ; his love
of grey paper, 363, 385 ; his Uber
SiwUorum begun in aquatint, 482.

Type, letters in, how drawn, 15-17.

Ultramarine, 4; ashes, 294; genuine,

289 ; Guimet's, 289 ; Zuber's, 289.
Umber, burnt, 294 ; raw, 293, 294.
Unger, his etchings after Frans Hals,

443-
Useful drawing out of place in pictures,
19-22.

Van Eyck, John, 253; Hubert, 253;

brothers, th^ method of painting,

277.
Vandyke brown, 296; effects of white

upon it in mixture, 196.
Vandevdde, Adrian, his system of pen

and wash, 119.
Van Goyen, Jan, 'River Scene' by,

121.

Index.

507

Van Huysum, his tinted drawings, 122 ;

his * Flowers and Fruit ' engraved in

mezzotint, by Earlom, 485.
Vander Weyde, Rogier, his drawing in

^Iver-point with lustre shading of * A

Lady in a Hat/ 127.
Van Leyden, Lucas, 464, 465, 473 ; his

* TemptatioVi,' 45S.
Varnish, its his^rical importance in

painting, 254 ; question as to its use

by the Itahans, 272.
Varnish-painting, pure, 254.
Velasquez, his method of painting, 276-

279; his portrait of Philip IV., 276;

his portrait of the Infanta Margaret,

276.
Voadty, want of, in ordinary inter-
course, 25 ; want of, in art, 25.
Vermilion, effects of white upon it in

mixture, 195, 290--294.
Vemet, Horace, his palette, 316.
Veronese, Paul, his study of, A Negro's

Head,' 155; his system of painting,

271 ; his method of painting, 278,

279.
Vignette, the, its advantages in water-
colour, 372.
Vintimiile, Archbishop de, portrait of,

by Rigaud, engraved by Drevet,

469.
VioUet-le-Duc, his principles of draw-

^g) 13 » qualities of his drawings,

loS.
Virtues, how various they are in differ-
ent works of art, 60, 61.
Visscher, Cornelius, his portrait of Gd-

lius de Bouma, 466.
Vorsterman, engraver, 465,

WalKs, engraver, 476.
Waltner, various qualities of his blacks,
432 ; his etchings from old master

443-
Washes, auxiliary, iii.

Wash, auxiliary, compared with nature,

122.

Water, used in watercolour painting,

380.
Water-colour, necessity for speed in,

1S6 ; painting in, 339 ; contempt for

it in France, 340 ; how derived from
the monochrome wash, 342 ; on mono-
chrome, 344; monocliromes touched
with colours, 347 ; in grey and brown,
348; danger of crudity in, 349; its
two kinds, 351 ; its difficulty, 352 ;
shown work and hidden work, 356;
use of brandy in, 358; qualities of
water-colour fetches, 367 ; facility of
alteration in, 368 ; super-position,
how used in, 369 ; use of interhatch-
ing in, 370 ; pigments employed in,
373-376 ; the four forms in which it
is used, 376 ; opaque, 351 \ compari-
son of, with nature, 351.

Water-glass, two divisions of, 236;
receipts for composing, 236; colours
used in, 237 ; fixing of them^^^^.^

Water monochrome, 177.

Watson, James, engraver in mezzotint,
486.

Watteau, his method of painting^ 7^,
278.

Watts, his fresco at Lincoln's Inn, 242.

Wedmore, his Studies in English Art,
quoted, 485.

*• Wellington and Bliicher after Water-
loo,' water-glass painting by Madise,
238.

West, Benjamin, 307.

Westminster Abbey, 24.

White, Chinese, 352 ; danger of, in
black and white drawings, 1 72 ; use
of, in drawings for reproduction, 1 72 ;
flake, not really neutral, 383 ; opaque,
used in combination with pencil, 139 ;
use of chalk for water-colour, 374 ;
in lithography, 491.

Wilson, An^w, on intonaco^ 231 ; the
painter, his peculiar touch, 312; a
simple artist to engrave, 470.

Woman in White^ the connoisseur in.

Wood-engraving, its unfortunate condi-
tion, 398 ; four dasses of, 402 ; inde-
pendent, 402 ; in facsimile, 413, 422 ;^
that which interprets shades by lines,
422 ; that which imitates otlier arts,
425 ; American, 427 ; comparison of,
witii nature, 42S.

5o8

Index.

WooUetti engraver, 469.

Wyatt, Sir DigbjTy as a draughtsman,
108 ; his practical experience ol mu-
ral paintings, 235.

Wyld, his value for cobalt and yeUow
ochre, 376 ; a sketch by, in the Pyre-
nees, 365.

Ydlow, bright, effect of white upon it
in mixture, 196 ; cadmium, 2S1 ;

stnmtian, 290-394 ; Indian, 295, 318 ;
Indian, its use in water-colour, 380;
lemon, 294; Naples, 294; Naples,
cbjectUniable in water-oolour, 377.
Yon, Edmond, his use of white lines
and spots in etching, 447.

Zinc and copper, their influence on etch-

2nc used for etching, 431 ; white, 299.

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